


to Cleave (Unto)

by Blue



Series: Angelus ex Machina [3]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M, Parabatai Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-08-17 04:56:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 76,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16509746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue/pseuds/Blue
Summary: The parabatai bond is being weird (again) and sometimes Alec and Jace are more like Alec-and-Jace. That's just where this all starts, though. This is about contracts, bonds, obligations, and vows, along with all the other invisible ties that bind us like love and family. Some you seek out, some you keep, and some... some you break.





	1. Izzy Extracts Information

**Author's Note:**

> General content warning: There is an off-screen incident of homophobia-fueled job neglect that results in injury and Alec has to deal with it as a discipline issue. It's a big enough plot point to mention, but not big enough to tag as a major theme.
> 
> If you're jumping into the series here, the main thing to know is that the parabatai bond has grown a lot stronger than it is depicted in the show.
> 
> The first two parts of this series and the bulk of this fic were all written before any of season 3 aired. I did incorporate some of S3A while finishing it and through re-writes — notably, taking into account Maryse's drastic characterization changes, if not the exact plot points.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Jace is subjected to an interrogation, Izzy reminisces about Shadowhunter class field trips, and there's a surprise visitor.

Izzy walked into her lab and went through the routine on auto-pilot: lab coat on, hair up, hands washed. She'd just laid out everything she needed to draw two blood samples when Jace ambled in, already sliding his jacket off. She'd taken a vial from Alec earlier, then kicked his grumpy self out of the Institute for the night. It'd been a rough week for him between his personal nerves and several long Council meetings and he'd desperately needed some kind of relaxation even if he hadn't been ready to admit it.

Jace waited until she'd finished and extracted the needle before he grinned. "Someone's in a good mood."

Izzy smiled and focused on labeling the sample. "That obvious, huh? How's the eidolon bite?"

"The humming is kind of a tell. And it's been two weeks, the bite's still fine. It must not have been as deep as it looked. I mean, you can't even tell it was there."

"Show me."

Jace rolled his eyes, but stripped half out of his shirt and turned around so she could see the back of his left arm. Sure enough, not so much as a scar. Not _any_ scars, for that matter, but she already knew that.

"Good. Simon says hi, by the way. He had a day trip today and he lucked into cell service for a bit."

She labeled the tube and put it away in the fridge next to Alec's. She'd run the samples once she had Clary's, then transfer them to the long term storage with the rest. There were over a year's worth now — she'd been drawing blood weekly from Alec, Jace, and Clary ever since the demon lull. Or, rather, she hadn't stopped after it had broken and had kept on tracking the same levels they'd already isolated, looking for changes. They‘d stayed steady for the most part. Then, a couple of weeks ago, she'd been field dressing an eidolon bite on the back of Jace's left bicep.

The first red flag had been when she'd cut away his shirt to get to the wound and, with half his upper back bared, she'd realized he was missing the scar she'd given him with an errant sword blow when she was fifteen. It had landed perilously close to his spine and gone deep, scaring absolutely everyone except Jace. There was no mark of it now, despite the fact she knew it had been there as recently as three months ago.

The second red flag had been the bite itself. It had been a deep wound that had muddled through tendons and Izzy had argued the Silent Brothers should treat it. Jace had reluctantly agreed, but when they'd removed the rough bandaging the next morning, there was only the iratze Alec had applied and a few faint marks where the bite had been. At that point Izzy had started having _questions_. Especially once she'd determined Alec was missing his old scars, too.

Shirt and jacket back on, Jace took a seat on the other side of the lab bench. "So how's Simon doing?"

"Good. He's good. He's having fun, learning things. I'll be glad when he's back in New York full time, though." She tried to hold back the automatic smile, but it was no use. She still  couldn't help it any time she thought about him.

Jace and Alec were, of course, enjoying it all way too much. Alec had been distracted lately and only tormented her intermittently, but Jace had been picking up the slack and kept giving her dumbass grins whenever he caught her being soppy again. Like now. She rolled her eyes but didn't stop smiling. “So, anyway, about Alec."

Jace shook his head. “Not yet.”

"I _know_ not yet. Once he finally asks Magnus to marry him, total strangers are going to read it right off his face let alone _me_. I'm talking about the not yet considering he's had the engagement token for a month. If he doesn't think of the 'exactly perfect' way to propose soon, I’m going to resort to blackmail just to put us all out of his misery.”

"You're not living with it randomly popping up in your head, Iz. He's thinking about it a _lot_. If he takes much longer, I'm going to accidentally propose to Magnus for him and then Alec's going to kill me."

"Wait," Izzy squinted at him, "fully formed thoughts are breaking through now? As in unspoken words? That seems like a significant step up from what you've told me before."

"Uh, well, kind of?" He didn't actually squirm on the stool but it was a near thing. "I mean, yes. Mostly it's just an image of the ring—"

"I'm here!" Clary said as she all but slid into the lab.

"I can see that," Izzy said, starting to set up the second blood draw.

Jace, looking visibly relieved at the interruption, spun sideways on his stool to face her. "If you knew how often she was late to training run roll calls when we were teenagers, you wouldn't have been so worried. Once, Alec literally hauled her out of bed and carried her to the gathering point."

Izzy lifted an eyebrow at the blatant diversion but she'd let it lie, at least for long enough to set the record straight. "You say that as if you had nothing to do with it."

"You were supposed to still be asleep and not notice I was there."

"Oh, I was. I just knew better than to think it was all Alec's idea." She hadn't actually woken up until Alec sat her on her feet at the start of the day's training run. She'd dropped into parade rest on autopilot, then realized what was going on. Jace and Alec had been to either side of her and she'd spent the entire intro speech muttering increasingly explicit threats to their persons. "I might have been barefoot and in pajamas, but I still came in third."

"You were pissed off and mean is what you were. Alec and I beat you because we were afraid you'd catch us."

Izzy hummed happily at the memory of that day. It had been absolute _mayhem._ Her feet had been torn to shreds by the end but iratzes had been prohibited for the duration and she'd have been damned before giving up the chase. "Ezra was so angry I took him out just two hours in."

"Izzy was 13 and Ezra was three years ahead of her," Jace explained to Clary. "He was also twice her size at that point."

Clary shook her head while rolling up her sleeve. "My field trips were very, very different in high school."

"They were probably boring. Relax your arm." Izzy went through the motions of drawing the blood. "I'd tell you Simon said hi, but I'm pretty sure he talked to you afterward anyway."

"Oh, he did. I got a full rundown of how amazing you are. Again."

Izzy felt the dopey smile spreading across her face again. Damnit. "Okay! Now the question and answer portion." Jace groaned. "So the bond is still getting stronger?" she asked as she put everything away.

He sighed. "Yeah."

 _"How_ strong?"

He shrugged. "When we have it opened up, it's fine. It's not breaking or anything. It's just that climbing back out of each other's heads and putting up the walls is taking a lot more effort. It's… bigger? Or it's like everything around it's bigger?"

Izzy leaned a hip against the lab table and spun her hand for him to continue talking.

"It used to be the low level feed I got of Alec's state of mind was this background thing. Like, _way_ in the background. Now it's like it's right over my shoulder. I know where he's at all the time, at least in terms of direction and distance from where I am. And if we're not thinking about it, I'm grabbing for his coffee like it's sitting next to me."

"Plus there's the questions thing and other stuff," Clary said.

"Like fully formed thoughts," Izzy added.

Jace looked up and met her eyes but said nothing.

The first time he'd slipped — or realized he'd slipped anyway — he'd flat out panicked. Thankfully, the next thing he'd done was go running to Alec. She'd been with Alec at the time, puzzling over him doing the same thing, and they'd figured out what was happening quickly enough. Jace had calmed down once they realized it was the bond and that the two of them were channeling each other subconsciously, reacting to the other's environment rather than their own, but he still didn't like talking about it.

She waited him out.

Finally, after almost a full minute, he looked away and muttered, "Answering each other's questions has only happened a few times."

She grabbed a pen laying next to her and threw it at him. Jace, of course, caught it rather than duck. "It still happened! It's Alec, Jace, it's not—" She bit off the name Lilith out of habit. Nobody said it around Jace unless they had to, not if they liked him anyway. "This is your parabatai. It's okay. But we need to figure this out and I can't help you unless you tell me what's going on." When you added in both verbally and physically reacting to the wrong environment, it had been more than a few times even that Izzy knew about, but she let him have that one.

Jace took a breath and set his shoulders. "Fine, yeah, answering each other's questions. If we concentrate, then it doesn't happen. We just can't concentrate all the time."

"It's so weird though," Clary said, "it's not like you ever reached for a quiver on your own back in a fight. So why are you suddenly mixing yourselves up on an average day?"

Jace started tapping a rhythm on the tabletop with the pen. "If we're in a fight now then we're not going to do it because we're parabatai. It's like being all one person. Before, the way it used to be— A fight is a dance. Being aware of ourselves, of how we're moving through space, of what our opponents are doing, that's all the point. If we're Jace and Alec on an average day then the bleed over is just… random. Random is confusing."

Izzy shook her head. Jace and his dancing metaphors. She couldn't laugh too much, though, considering he'd been right the first time it'd come up. "But it's better when you're around Clary and Magnus. Is it easier to pull back?"

"Without them it's like being at attention, or standing sentry. With them, it's not pulling us in. We _can_ fall into it when they're around, but it's optional."

"So they're anchoring you."

"Yeah, if Clary's close to me or Magnus is close to Alec — or both — then it's easy to stay inside my own head. I don't even have to think about it."

"Do you feel anything, Clary? Can you sense it at all?"

Clary shrugged. "No, not that I've noticed. It's definitely not anything I'm doing on purpose."

There was the sound of a throat clearing from the doorway and a familiar voice said, "Ahem."

Izzy froze. When the _fuck_ had her mom gotten in from Alicante? Far more importantly, how much had her mom overheard? The last thing she wanted was her mom asking questions before Izzy had some real results, something other than the had-to-be-wrong conclusions she'd gotten with the tests she'd run herself on a whim. They were no better than wild speculation that was going to scare everyone. _After_ she heard back from Cat, then she could—

"Weapons?" Jace asked. "Is there an emergency I don't know about?" He was facing the door and smiling brightly as if he hadn't just been caught out.

Izzy turned around and found her mother wearing a sword in a shoulder holster.

Her mom smiled, the momentary softness of her expression a bit vacant with the perpetual exhaustion she carried these days. "Good evening, and no. But I do need to speak to Alec immediately. I tried reaching him by phone, but he wasn't answering."

Jace was already pulling out his own phone. "He's out with Magnus tonight." Then he added, "He's not drugged or behind wards, for the record."

It had been a few months since Alec had been abducted, but everyone was still nervous when it came to his whereabouts.

With the phone still to his ear, Jace said, "He's not answering me either."

Everything considered, Izzy felt safe in assuming Alec was keeping Jace out. Which meant Alec might very well have his hands on Magnus. She squinted at Jace. This seemed like a recipe for disaster.

Jace caught her look and one corner of his mouth twitched up. "They're at— they were going to Pandemonium tonight."

Ah, that's why he was annoyed rather than… anything else.

"How sure are you that he's there?" Maryse asked and Jace paused for half a heartbeat.

Their mom knew _something_ was going on — hell, the whole Institute knew something was going on — but the part where things were spinning out of control was still very much under wraps. Izzy knew perfectly well Jace and Alec were afraid their parabatai bond was collapsing in on itself. They were even more afraid of orders to break it.

Thankfully, Alec wasn't in the room. Angel help him, while he was better than he used to be, he still couldn't hide big things for love or money from their mother. Jace, on the other hand, might be an open book when he was unguarded, but when he dissembled with intent he slid into the lies like a well fitted suit.

"Pretty certain, but if he's not, then I might be able to find him," he hedged.

Maryse nodded. "Good."

"Clary and I'll go get him. Did you want us to meet you back here?"

"We won't need to meet back here, Jace, because I'm going with you." He voice was dry and a bit sardonic. It was the tone that came up when they'd failed to sneak something past her. Damnit. Her mom had definitely overheard something and they were all going to be under her scrutiny until she figured it out. Fortunately, the vast majority of her time was spent on the other side of the Alicante portal these days.

Izzy winced at even having that thought and pictured the look of disappointment Alec would give her if he knew she'd had it.

"Okay," Jace said with a casual shrug, like her chaperoning the errand made no difference to him one way or the other.

Izzy's eyes went wide. Wait, this meant her mom was going to _Pandemonium_.

Clary hopped off her stool and lead the way, drawing Izzy's mom's attention for a few moments of conversation. It was enough that Izzy could grab Jace's sleeve as he walked past her and ask him quietly, "Now you _can't_ get his attention?"

"I… could. In an emergency," Jace whispered back.

Izzy gave him a look that she thought pretty clearly communicated 'This isn't an emergency??'

"Is there a greater demon invading the city as the Inquisitor arrives with a full envoy? No? Then this is not an emergency."

Was Jace _blushing?_ Wait, had the recipe for disaster already happened?? She wracked her brain and came up gold. "Does this have anything to do with last Monday?"

Jace scowled at her. "We are never discussing it. Ever."


	2. *popcorn emoji*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is what you get for ignoring your parabatai's urgent warnings, Alec.

Jace made one last ditch effort to dial Alec's phone as they walked into Pandemonium, but it still went to voice mail. Maybe they were dancing? Alec still preferred watching Magnus dance to dancing himself, but it happened from time to time.

Jace started weaving through the crowd on autopilot, following the bright flare in his mind's eye that was Alec, and glanced around to check on Maryse. She'd loosened up a lot in the last couple of years, but Pandemonium was still pretty far outside her comfort zone and it was showing. She was wearing her tunnel vision scowl, the one that usually had everyone scurrying out of her way, and was fixedly ignoring the mundane and demon blooded alike writhing around her.

Clary, in the rear of their little party, sent him a text. **_should we call in back-up or get some popcorn_ **

**_don't know yet depends on what has him so distracted_** , Jace responded.

Clary sent back a string of popcorn emoji even as the curtain to the VIP area came into sight.

Jace nodded at the bouncer and they pushed through. The crowd thinned out in here, both because there were fewer people and because more than one Downworlder took a step — or several steps — back at the sight of Maryse striding through the room with all the subtlety of invading royalty. Fuck. He should have sent someone to bring Alec and Magnus to the door, let their presence buffer and calm the Downworld reaction to Maryse in this kind of mood.

Magnus was going to kill him.

The parabatai homing beacon finally came to rest clear at the back of the lounge where Magnus and Alec were in a shadowed booth, making out with serious intent and blissfully ignorant of absolutely anything going on around them. Magnus was sitting propped up against the side, one of his legs between Alec and the seat back, the other boot on the seat on the far side of Alec's thigh. Alec was twisted around, left hand wrapped around the back of Magnus' head and his right _scandalously_ high on Magnus' inseam. In _public._

Jace looked over at Clary, who raised both eyebrows at him, and they grinned at each other. Considering the things Alec had walked in on him doing, it was downright tame, but somehow Jace didn't think Alec was going to see it that way. Not with his mother standing right in front of him. Jace pulled up the camera on his phone and framed the shot while Alec, despite knowing damn well Jace was standing there, kept right on making out with Magnus. Jace, trying not to laugh, cleared his throat. Without looking around, Alec flipped him off — fortunately, it was for long enough that Jace was able to get it in the photo. The flash was a small explosion of light in the dark club, but Alec still refused to look up.

Then Maryse snapped out, _"Alexander!"_

Jace was so glad he was ready for it when Alec's head whipped around, face full of horror. Jace triggered the shutter button again and captured both the full glory of Alec's expression and Magnus having just thunked his head back against the side of the booth in obvious annoyance.

Jace opened a group text with Izzy and Clary and sent the first photo while Alec sputtered and scrambled to drag his brain back up from the gutter it'd been in. He added **_you should have seen where that hand was 2 seconds earlier_**.

Izzy's immediate reply was **_OMG_ ** And then **_IN PUBLIC?!?!_ **

Magnus swung the one leg up over Alec's head and stood. He resettled his clothing with pointed dignity, then walked over and peered over Jace's left shoulder just as the second photo finished uploading to Izzy. Jace enlarged the second photo for him, then swiped back to the first.

"Ooo, send me a copy of that one." Magnus' voice was loud enough to be heard but still quiet enough not to carry to Alec and Maryse. Alec wasn't paying attention anyway, he was attempting to straighten his shirt while caught somewhere between standing at parade rest and slumping to make himself smaller. “We’ll consider it down payment on what you owe me for _terrorizing my patrons.”_

Jace winced even as a text arrived from Izzy that was just a whole string of crying laughing emojis in response to the second photo. Meanwhile, neither Alec nor Maryse were handling the embarrassment with any grace, but Jace knew from personal experience that Maryse dealt with it much better when she was safely inside the Institute and not in the eye of the Downworld. Alec he had tried to warn, repeatedly, so Alec could suffer for a few minutes. This is what you got for aggressively ignoring your parabatai.

"Have you been drinking?" Maryse asked, voice still sharp but fortunately not as loud as it could have been.

"No!" Alec said, for some reason attempting to sound scandalized at the suggestion he would be consuming alcohol in a club on his night off.

Despite only being one word, the lie still wasn't the least bit believable. The attempt was so bad, Maryse actually covered her face with one hand.

Alec broke his parade rest, grimacing and rubbing at the back of his head while he shifted on his feet. He looked like he was feeling all of 15 years old, but that Jace could sympathize with: Maryse defaulting to a straight spine and a hard voice was giving him flashbacks, too, he was just better than Alec at knowing what it was and what it wasn't.

 _This_ was the discomfort of too many witnesses, of dirty laundry and potentially exploitable weaknesses. It was an Alicante reaction, where a moments indignity could be paid for ten fold, because Maryse didn't always remember that the Downworld had very different priorities. This wasn't real anger, this was a self-defensive, diversionary tactic; it had taken Jace a while after he'd moved in with the Lightwoods to tell the difference between the two. He'd eventually figured it out, mostly because Alec had some of the same mannerisms and he had been both easier to read and easier to trust. Weirdly, Alec himself still couldn't tell most of the time. Like now.

Jace rolled his eyes and poked at Alec through the bond, but Alec was still a mess of surprise and alarm and it was like yelling into a crowded room. He broke off his next attempt when his phone vibrated with a response text from Clary. It was a grainy photo of Alec lit up by the blue-white light of the projection screen on the back wall and it came with the accurate caption **_now_** **_he looks like he got caught raiding the cookie jar_** _._

The cookie jar in question, still hanging over Jace's shoulder, started to laugh and turned it into a cough.

Maryse dropped her hand and took a deep breath. Her spine relaxed down a few degrees in what Jace was sure was a conscious effort. "I only ask because we're here on business. We tried calling, but neither of you were answering your phones."

Alec fumbled his phone out of a pocket. He frowned down at it, winced, and flicked the switch on the side. "I, uh, I seem to have turned it off vibrate. Accidentally." He stuffed the offending phone into a pocket again and crossed his arms.

Jace shoved at the bond again, harder this time, and finally garnered a glare from Alec. He sent him reassurance — _stop worrying, all's well, stand down_ — and Alec's heart rate started to slow. He didn't stop glaring, but he at least settled back into disgruntled annoyance.

Magnus straightened up, drawing Maryse's attention. "And mine met with a mishap earlier, so that explains that. Why don't we go somewhere a bit quieter and you can explain what dire situation has required the exalted Lightwood matriarch to return to the field."

Jace's phone vibrated with a new message from Izzy

**_btw tell magnus that’s an excellent outfit he picked out_ **

**_???_ **

**_no way alec decided to pour himself into those pants  
not with that shirt_ **

 

* * *

 

Alec led the way with Jace right behind him. Maryse was at Jace's back with Magnus and Clary trailing along behind, which should have been plenty close enough for Jace to be falling easily back to his own head. The bond remained stubbornly keyed up, though, probably from him paying attention to it while tracking Alec down. The long week wasn't helping either — the stress had mostly been Alec's, but right now it was all one and the same. Despite the down time he'd had so far this evening, Alec hadn't put it all away yet and Jace could feel him struggling to shift gears. Jace could have shoved the bond down and held the walls himself, but instead he threaded in and through Alec's mental borders, filling in the ragged edges. Once Jace was guarding the perimeter, Alec settled a little further back on his spine, the intensity of his forward motion easing.

It was the way they existed most of the time lately, their default configuration when Clary and Magnus weren't around. They hadn't talked about it, not since that first day, but they hadn't needed to. Most of the time, when both of them were working, they just mentally lived in each others hip pockets. For Jace that meant he led training sessions while silently arguing over budget breakdowns with Alec, or discussed patrol schedules with Izzy while listening to Matthews give Alec an incident report with a highly suspect version of events.

It was easy within the Institute, within New York for that matter, most of which was safe ground where they could chance the incidental slips. In the wider Clave, though, it was a different risk all together. Given that risk, Jace had been sequestering himself during any meeting on Alec's schedule that included anyone from the outside. While Alec did his thing, Jace spent the time going through the motions with his swords, mindful of every exercise. They kept his attention on his physical boundaries even as the combination of automatic habit and learned focus helped keep him inside his own head. Neither of them could let down their guard completely, not when a single slip could have serious consequences, but it was the easiest they'd managed to make it on Alec to hold the line the last few weeks.

The experience of it reminded Jace of when they'd first taken the runes. It had been a lot less intense back then, the bond a lot more shallow, but they'd had no control at all and neither of them had been ready for it. Now they had a lot less secrets from each other and, with anchors pulling them back part of the time, they still had time to themselves. The parabatai battle mind burned hot and bright and had little care for the basic requirements of life, but they weren't that bad off yet — they still felt hunger and thirst most days and there were a half dozen people to remind them if they slipped. Minor injuries outside of an active battle could be a problem, but they noticed sooner or later. It was all mixed up sometimes, but they were still _Jace_ and _Alec._ If this was as bad as it got, Jace wouldn't have minded. The problem was not knowing how bad it was going to get.

At the moment, Alec had subsided to a baseline vaguely irritated as he led them through the narrow service hallways. Jace had been in the operational side of Pandemonium a few times, but he hadn't seen much besides people coming and going, half distributed supplies stacked up along the wall, and employee notices tacked up on cork boards. The only other hint of a layout was a glass strip halfway up the back wall of the main floor. He'd clocked it at some point, but the angle and lights didn't allow for any visibility of what lay beyond. It turned out that up a flight of steps, on the opposite side of the glass, was a narrow hallway lined with an upscale meeting room and several offices, one of which was Magnus'.

Magnus ushered everyone into the small room ahead of him but, just as Jace went to go through the doorway, Magnus grabbed the back of his jacket and yanked him back out. The door closed as Jace stumbled back and he turned around to find Magnus standing there with his arms crossed and glaring at him. There was a blip of concern from Alec but Jace tucked it back down.

"Have you lost your mind?!" Magnus demanded, "This isn't exactly Maryse's natural habitat!"

Jace rolled his eyes as he resettled his jacket. "I couldn't just tell her to wait outside."

"Were you afraid she'd be _mugged?"_ Magnus hissed.

"Did you really want her standing out in front of the club, Magnus? Would that have been the better solution?"

"You're _Shadowhunters!_ There are _rooftops!"_ He reached around Jace and opened the door, not-so-gently pushing Jace through before sailing in himself.

Inside, Alec and Maryse had taken seats. Clary was perched on the arm of Alec's chair and grinning while he read the texts with Izzy on her phone. He was trying to bury the reluctant amusement in favor of the annoyance, but it was only half working. Looking like he'd gotten hit by Magnus the Glitter Fairy wasn't giving the glare any traction either. Of course, given the size of the office, they were all liable to be wearing glitter when they walked out. "Office" might not have even been the right word, although the glass fronts on a couple of cabinets clearly showed an array of bottles and containers that all but stamped it as a warlock's territory — it wasn't a paperwork sort of office at any rate. There was no desk, just four chairs facing each other, a couple of side tables, and narrow cabinets along the walls.

Magnus took one of the empty seats, leaving Jace the one across from Alec. Jace took the open chair and Clary immediately moved over and sat on his knee, keeping most of her weight still balanced on her feet. He slid his hand up under the hem of her shirt to the soft skin of her waist and followed the pathway the contact opened up back into his own mental edges. There wasn't much more than gauze between them, but at least Alec's eyes had lost the gold shine they'd picked up in the hallway. Maryse was used to some gold in Alec's eyes by now, but if they didn't tone it down, she was going to pin them to the wall and demand answers. Then it was all going to get messy.

Alec tossed Clary her phone, leaned back, and crossed his arms. "I have no guesses here. You're armed but you didn't bring my weapons and we haven't left yet, so what's the emergency."

Maryse's expression was a lot less stiff now that they were behind closed doors. She adjusted the sword at her back and said, "The Council was negotiating with a warlock by the name of Ívarr Eliff on behalf of the Denver Institute. It was in regards to a contract for rebuilding and maintaining their wards. The talks had already stalled when Eliff refused to proceed further unless you were the primary negotiator."

Oh, that explained it. Alec had instituted the concept of formal contracts between institutes and Downworld contractors about a year before and he'd been selling it hard to the entire Clave ever since. Once that door was open, a lot of the greater warlock community had started demanding them, speeding up how fast the practice was adopted. Alicante was always in favor of a binding document, but contracts also pushed them to negotiate with their Downworld contacts on a equal basis. That continued to be a lot harder pill for some of them to swallow.

"Okay, so why are you armed if it was a contract negotiation?" Alec asked.

Her lips tightened briefly. "Councilor Seraiah insisted on it for the negotiating party." Jace would have bet significant money she'd lost an argument over it.

"Ah yes," Magnus said, sipping at a drink he'd apparently produced when Jace wasn't looking. "That's my favorite Clave negotiation tactic. Always amusing."

Alec's temper bristled along the edges of Jace's awareness and pierced the thin barrier between them like burrs hooking into clothing. "This is about a contract for _ward maintenance,_ not a confrontation _._ So Seraiah was leading the negotiations when Ívarr started dragging his feet?" Maryse nodded and he rolled his eyes. "I want to strangle Seraiah on a good day. The Clave won't end up with the price and terms they would have in the first place, but if Ívarr was going to walk, he would have already. Seraiah just can't get his biased arrogance out of the way long enough to negotiate a simple goddamn contract."

Clary hummed thoughtfully. "To be fair, you want to strangle a lot of people."

"No, I agree with Alec on this one," Jace said. "Seraiah is an asshole. I'm more surprised the local Clave didn't walk. There's other warlocks the Denver Institute could have contracted with."

Magnus made a noise of disagreement. "Technically, but Ívarr creates beautiful wards and I'm under the impression Denver has fewer warlocks of the necessary power and skill level than you might expect. He has little competition at any rate."

"And the only reason the Council is handling the negotiations in the first place is because Denver's institute leadership is in flux," Maryse said. "Ívarr has always been the institute's preferred choice, both former and incoming administrations. Regardless, the Consul wants it wrapped up. So, Alec, you'll change, we'll portal to Alicante where Ívarr is at the north gate—"

"The _north gate?"_ Alec interrupted her. "They were holding negotiations literally _at the gate?"_ Jace could feel him digging in his heels. "We're not going to Alicante."

Maryse lifted one eyebrow. "Well, they weren't exactly going to hold negotiations with a warlock in Accords Hall, now were they?"

"They could have held the negotiations in Denver!" The spike in Alec's temper broke through the veil between them for a moment and Jace saw Alec's eyes flash gold. "It's a ridiculous power play I won't be party to. Given the time frame and the fact Ívarr's already sitting on Alicante's doorstep, the New York Institute should be acceptable. He'll portal in, I'll mediate the terms, and the Consul will have her signatures. You have a copy of the contract with the proposed numbers?"

"Of course."

"Then, as the current assigned lead, I control the negotiating party. Jace will be there as the assistant head of the Institute and you will serve as representative of the Clave's interests." Magnus coughed and Alec added, "A few friendly observers may be individually approved."

"The Consul will balk at those conditions."

Alec shrugged, his tension easing now that he knew he was getting his way. "I wasn't planning on asking her ahead of time. You told me the time frame was critical and I executed a plan of action with all due haste."

"Better to ask forgiveness than permission?" Maryse asked, sounding amused. Alec smirked.

"Izzy and I are such good influences," Jace told Clary.


	3. Negotiation at the Institute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec is a spectacle, Izzy is _very_ proud, and a contract is even negotiated. It's almost a typical ~~day~~ night at the New York Institute.

Magnus was the last to exit the portal into the Institute's entry hall. He closed it behind them while pondering how the next ten minutes or so were at least going to be interesting. Earlier in the evening, Alec had trudged into the loft both exhausted and restless, his long week apparently not having let up; he'd looked at Magnus like man dying of thirst looked at an oasis but, unfortunately, it was a bit of a mirage. Magnus had winced and then broken the news that he was already committed to at least an hour at Pandemonium for a client meeting. Then he'd suggested maybe Alec might like to come along? Alec had considered it for a few minutes and then agreed... but said he was at a loss for what to wear.

Magnus wasn't sure whether it had been about Alec letting him have fun or just not wanting to make yet another decision at that point. Regardless, Magnus had tried not to take too much advantage even if he couldn't resist producing pants that hugged the muscles of Alec's ass and legs in truly spectacular fashion. They'd required a couple minutes of convincing, but that they had a pocket down the thigh for a phone and stele and the fact the fabric had some stretch to it were both prime selling points. The boots were enough like Alec's usual footwear he didn’t blink, and the shirt was one of Alec's own. Admittedly, the shirt was considerably shorter and tighter than it had been in order to keep from obstructing the view.

The jewelry hadn't required any convincing at all since rings and bracelets weren't unusual for Alec to wear these days. Still, Magnus had taken his time picking them out and sliding them on over Alec's hands and fingers. Then he summoned the ear cuff he'd been saving ever since Alec first wore one of Magnus' and hooked that on his ear. Alec had humored Magnus with the eyeliners — a thin, perfect slip of black all around his waterline and a touch of silver glitter — and that was the point Magnus had second thoughts about actually taking Alec out in public that night. No one was going to dare get handsy though (and if they did, there would be consequences one way or another) so he'd shrugged and ran with it.

There had been lip gloss Magnus had kissed off three separate times before he'd given up, but all the kissing and sandpaper scratch of Magnus' goatee had left Alec's lips perfectly pink anyway. They matched his hair since it was, by now, well into sex hair territory. It had started out gelled and artfully mussed, but Magnus had thoroughly enjoyed mussing it even further over the course of the evening into an artless dishabille that definitely implied disreputable activities. All of which was added to by the dusting of glitter that had started the night out on Magnus and had drifted its way over Alec. Most of it was across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose like a blush of starlight. He was a absolute _vision_.

At no point, however, had Magnus considered the possibility they’d be parading through the operations room of the New York Institute in full view of every Shadowhunter on duty.

It was hardly an outrageous turnout, especially by Magnus' standards, but Alec went to work in sober black patrol clothes or in a suit and tie. Walking with Clary behind Alec, Jace, and Maryse — Magnus’ eyes therefore automatically falling to Alec’s ass that was set off so nicely by those pants — he was still trying to decide if this was all an amazing twist or a slow burning disaster.

There was a sudden commotion that included the loud clatter of heels and Magnus managed to tear his eyes away in time to see Izzy careen down the mezzanine walkway. She practically fell down the steps to get to them, took one top-to-bottom look at Alec, and lit up like it was her birthday.

“Don’t say it,” Alec said.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say!”

“I don’t need to. I know that look. Whatever it is, don’t say it.”

Izzy pouted. “Spoilsport.”

“Children,” Maryse said, her voice dry as dust, “if we could move this to the office.”

Izzy fell in with him and Clary behind the other three. “It’s even better than I thought! I'm just—” she wiped at an imaginary tear, "I'm just _so proud."_

Alec flipped her off behind his back with the hand opposite Maryse.

They’d just made it into a hallway proper when Clary leaned closer to Magnus and Izzy and said quietly, “I counted two people dropping things and at least three more freezing in their tracks. Oh, and one slow head tilt.”

Just then Magnus heard a wolf whistle from up ahead in the hallway. “Wow, bro." Then Max called back, “Nice work, Magnus!”

Alec, sounding annoyed, said, “Do you even have the meeting room ready?”

“Yes, oh bitchy one.”

“ _Maxwell Lightwood!_ ” Maryse snapped out.

Magnus saw Alec's shoulders move with a sigh as he ran one hand down his face. That definitely wasn't going to help his glitter situation.

“Uh, sir.”

Max fell in next to Magnus, looking chagrined. Izzy grabbed Max's arm and stopped, Magnus and Clary stopping with her, until there was half a hallway between the four of them and the front of the party.

“Really?” Izzy finally hissed at Max.

“I wasn't thinking!” Max groaned quietly.

"That's the problem! You're lucky it was Mom!"

“He’s gonna get chewed out for that, isn’t he?”

“Oh yeah. I mean, so are you. Probably twice.”

"Eh, day that ends in Y."

Definitely a slow burn disaster. It would be at _least_ six months before Magnus got him into those pants again.

They made it to the meeting room without further drama other than a minor demon report that came through from Ops. Izzy left to dispatch a patrol group to take care of that issue, Max was sent to fetch tablets, Alec started going over the contract with Maryse while Clary listened in, and Magnus and Jace ended up turning around and going back to escort Ívarr through the Institute to the meeting.

Magnus raised an eyebrow at the soberly suited warlock that stepped through the portal outside the Institute's front door. "Ívarr," he greeted, "lovely middle of the night to see you."

"Magnus!" Ívarr brightened and clapped his hands together. "I didn't realize you'd be here as well!" He kissed both Magnus' cheeks in greeting and when he pulled back he had a bit more sparkle than he'd shown up with. Oops. Well, Ívarr looked a little more like himself anyway.

"This is Jace, Alec's brother and parabatai." Magnus didn't bother to offer a last name since anyone outside the ongoing drama of the New York Institute tended to get confused when it changed with every encounter.

"Ah, yes, I've heard of you!"

"Good things, I hope," Jace said, offering his hand and the expected reply with an easy smile.

By the time they made it back to the meeting room, Maryse had disarmed and Max was already in parade rest next to the door, but Alec still looked absolutely delightful. Inside the Institute walls, Alec tended to default to his sternest mien, the hard expression cloaking some of how very pretty he was. Tonight, the contrast of Alec's workaday, shoulders back carriage and focused scowl combined with being quite this decoratively dressed was doing excellent things for Magnus.

Alec greeted Ívarr with a handshake and half hug, then pulled back and winced. "Sorry, I've probably just glittered you."

"Quite all right," Ívarr said, laughing. "Magnus almost certainly beat you to it." He gave Alec a top to bottom look. "I think I'm the one who needs apologize to you, Alexander, since I appear to have interrupted your night out."

"Whatever would give you that idea?" Alec asked, deadpan, but there was a trace of a smile in the corner of his mouth.

The negotiators ignored the conference table and instead took seats in the leather arm chairs off to the side that were arrayed around a coffee table holding water and glasses. Magnus joined Clary on the couch along the wall, which was close enough to hear everything but out of the way. She was balancing two tablets on her lap — reading from one and tapping what looked to be notes on the other — and had a calculator open on her phone next to her hip. As soon as he sat down, she handed him a third tablet with a copy of the contract already opened.

"You've already met our Council representative for this evening," Alec was saying, "my mother, Maryse Lightwood, and this is my brother, Jace Herondale, Assistant Head of the New York Institute. We're also joined by Clary Fairchild, Maxwell Lightwood, and I believe you've met Magnus Bane who serves as our own ward consultant."

Ívarr grinned. "Once or twice, yes."

Alec didn't actually smile, but the shift of the muscles around his eyes made it look like he'd thought about it. "I've been told, Mr. Eliff, that you asked for me specifically to change the negotiating parameters after the initial negotiations stalled."

"That is… accurate."

"Fair enough, but I need to remind you that not only am I representing the Council's interests in this negotiation, I am also currently serving as the Head of the New York Shadowhunter Institute under the sufferance and direction of the Council in Idris. I should not be considered a neutral party. Having said that, this is a good faith negotiation and the decisions we both agree to will be considered binding under the laws of the Accords."

Ívarr hesitated, but then nodded. "Understood, Mr. Lightwood."

"Good," Alec said, "then let's look at the base rate in the first section."

The plainly stated disclaimer was a bit of a surprise, although it was probably a good reminder for Ívarr who was accustomed to interacting with Alec under very different circumstances. It was more interesting to Magnus that Alec had thought to offer it. Alec's mindfulness of how to fairly negotiate the power differentials between the Downworld and the Clave was an ongoing learning process for him. It would have been a challenge for almost any Shadowhunter, but for a Lightwood raised and trained under the heavy hand of Alicante, it was a virtual sea change of everything he'd been taught. These days, Alec not only lived in the Downworld, but Downworld callers to the loft were for him as often as not. Which was to say nothing of when the two of them went out socializing. Even with so many hours eaten up by being Head of the Institute, Alec spent as much time in the Downworld these days as he did within the sovereign territory of the Clave.

For that matter, all the New York Lightwoods — which included Maryse, despite the obviously heavy yoke of assignment to Alicante she currently wore — were now more likely to retreat to the Downworld than they were to anywhere else. The change had been… Well, not gradual. It had been very quick, actually, and involved one phenomenal disaster after another. Some of them still woke Magnus in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, and those didn't even include a crashed wedding, multiple resurrections, and redemptions to go around. It had all been distracting though, and Magnus hadn't really noticed until it was a _fait accompli_ that they were up to their necks in each others lives. Magnus had a lot of life to remember before the younger Lightwoods had barged through Pandemonium with a determined Fairchild on their heels, but even he sometimes forgot it had only been a little over two years.

Speaking of lives going in an unexpected direction, next to him Clary was scrolling through the contract with one hand while taking notes with the other and pausing occasionally to use her phone for calculations. Finally Magnus asked very quietly, "What are you doing?"

Clary smiled and whispered back, "Thinking of my mom."

That was not an answer he'd expected.

"Mom was big on teaching me how to run a business. She said whether I inherited the antique shop or I was selling art, they were important skills to have. There were a lot of regular services to arrange for and negotiate, emergency repairs, and budgets to worry about. There was other stuff, too, like inventory, purchasing, advertising, networking, all the regular clients to keep track of, that kind of thing. Contracts and less formal agreements all came up a lot." Clary looked over and winked at him. "We never had to arrange for security security services, though."

In deference to the negotiations happening mere feet away, Magnus managed to not laugh. "How strange."

"Right?"

He hadn't heard from Dot in a couple of months; he should probably call her. The thing about immortality was that it wasn't unusual to go a couple of decades between lunch dates, but Dot's trauma at Valentine's hand wasn't so long ago.

"I mean, in hindsight it was probably how she kept me close for safety's sake, but the experience is coming in handy." She gestured at the contract tablet. "The language here is still pretty straightforward, and I know how your ward maintenance contract works, but I'm trying to get an idea of how the different financials are going to play out in practice."

Magnus hummed and started actually reading what she had handed him earlier. It _was_ fairly close to Magnus' own contract with the New York Institute, but that wasn't surprising. Alec had used that one sans numbers as a sample when he'd been pitching the idea to the Clave and anybody in the warlock community he could pin down — and pitched it he had. For a good six months, the main game at any Downworld social gathering they'd attended had been to see what it took to get Alec to stop circling back around to mentioning contracts at least once every half hour. Despite Izzy's protests, the No Blackmail rule was upheld, so no one ever actually won; _Magnus_ hadn't even won that game. Not in public, anyway. Even an Alec barely upright because of alcohol had just enunciated very carefully while outlining the various protections and clarifications a longer term contract could offer over more traditional arrangements.

This version of the contract the Clave had technically drafted, or at least interjected their numbers and made adjustments to the wording as they saw fit. Given that, it wasn't surprising the conditions and charges were a bit unreasonable in favor of the Clave, but given they'd already been partially negotiated was another story. It certainly illustrated how badly the whole thing had been going before Ívarr issued his ultimatum.

Alec, of course, was far more interested in a fair and stable contract than any posturing. With him ruthlessly on task, they worked their way through it fairly quickly, albeit with a few delicate pauses; despite his earlier disclaimer, Alec hesitated over accepting several of Ívarr's counteroffers that still favored the Clave a hair too much. The first time he'd done it, Ívarr had backed off even further and Alec's scowl had gotten very pointed. Ívarr took his cues better after that. Alec did also stop occasionally to check with his mother on the Council's hard limits and Jace interjected sporadic questions, but it was no more than an hour before they wrapped up the final numbers.

"Okay," Alec said, "that's the last item. Do either of you have any other questions, concerns, or items to address?" He glanced between Ívarr and Maryse, but they both indicated the negative. "Then that will do it." He signed the electronic copy and passed it over to Maryse, who did the same and passed it to Ívarr. After that, Jace took it, signed his line, and handed it back to Alec. "The scribes in Alicante will produce an archival copy for signing later but, as of now, this contract is considered sealed.

"Excellent!" Ívarr said. "I remain sorry I interrupted your night out, but this is a great relief and I thank you for the assistance."

Alec took Ívarr and Jace's tablets and handed them off to Max who'd bolted over from the door. "I'm just sorry this didn't work out the easy way for you."

"This _is_ the easy way, Alexander," Ívarr pointed out. "It wasn't so long ago that most interactions between Shadowhunters and warlocks were even less collaborative than in your experience and more… dictatorial."

"With a side of blackmail, usually," Magnus muttered, handing his own tablet to a waiting Max. Clary, still running figures and taking notes, waved the duckling off.

"As long as Alicante recognizes and follows this contract in good faith," Ívarr continued, "then I will be pleased to honor it. If at any time that changes, then that nullifies the agreement, does it not?"

"Yes, of course, but has something happened that makes you ask?" Alec asked with a frown.

Ívarr smiled. "Just wisdom that comes with age. Alicante has changed for the better in recent times, but there's nothing that says the pendulum can't swing back the other way. I may be younger than Magnus, but I've been alive long enough to have made many arrangements with people who either changed their attitudes for the worse or who ended up being someone different than I thought they were in the first place. Ultimately it is my responsibility what I do with my magic and my own moral code that I must uphold."

Alec's expression was pensive for a moment before he said, "Sometimes people change for the better, too."

"They do," Ívarr said, nodding, "but that usually means _they're_ breaking ties of one sort or another that they have previously held. We're all a mess of shifting alliances and we all spend our lives deciding where we stand. Sometimes where we stand changes." He hesitated and Magnus saw him glance over at Maryse, who was ostensibly reading something on her tablet. After a moment, he added, "I may not be from New York, Alexander, but I well know the name Maryse Lightwood."

Maryse looked up at that. She didn't say anything, just inclined her head in acknowledgment.

Ívarr nodded in return and then looked back to Alec. "No agreement should be more sacred than your own sense of right and wrong. A job is never just a job. But I hardly think you're a stranger to personal responsibility."

A snort escaped from Jace despite his obvious attempt to stifle it and Alec smiled faintly. "No, I'm familiar with it. Thank you, Ívarr, for your patience with the Clave. They can make it difficult sometimes." He stood, the other three taking the cue and standing with him.

Ívarr laughed. "You are, as ever, the master of the understatement."


	4. One Crisis Handled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus deserves a reward for good behavior, Alec makes a mental note for his next birthday (or any random evening, really, he's not picky), and they're both pretty happy with the way the night ends.

Magnus had been laughing at Ívarr's parting joke before they'd walked through their own portal and he was still laughing when they came out the other side and into the loft's lounge. Alec was glad to hear it, particularly considering the night's unexpected twists.

"I did not plan on our evening going that way," Magnus said, turning and smiling at Alec while letting the portal close.

"Yeah," Alec agreed ruefully, "neither did I." He took the last step closer to Magnus and draped his arms over his shoulders in a loose hug. Magnus slid his arms around Alec's waist and they stood there for a moment, the familiar sounds of home sinking into Alec's skin.

Between the usual influx of paperwork, three Council meetings, a major discipline issue, and Max arriving shamefaced back from Alicante with censure in hand from another unsanctioned fight, it had been a very, very long week. At least when Jace was threading around his mental edges — or when Magnus was in the same room — he felt balanced. In control. Without one of the two, the world felt like it could shift out from under his feet any minute and it was a constant crawl of nerves and effort to hold the walls that had been second nature for years. Clave meetings were the worst thing. They were tedious on a good day, but now the need for hard mental blocks to keep from accidentally channeling Jace meant he had to be at razor sharp attention the entire time. At the very least, distraction could mean his eyes shifting to gold as the bond spilled open and then things would get very complicated, very fast.

He'd trudged in the door earlier in the evening wanting time with Magnus for multiple reasons — not the least because he just plain _missed_ him after so many long days at the Institute. But Magnus had taken one look at Alec, winced, and broke the news that he was committed to Pandemonium for a client consultation and had two orders to drop off at the same time. The suggestion that Alec go with him had been unexpectedly appealing: his suit traded out for far less sober clothing, the pounding music to scrape the raw edges off of his nerves, the thousand distracting looks and touches from Magnus over the course of the evening. So he'd let Magnus strip the Institute off of him and put on the other version of Alec.

Alec was perfectly comfortable having both on and off-duty versions of himself, but the one had been getting all his energy in the last week and he'd needed a break.

Magnus pulled back just enough for Alec to see he was still smiling even as his eyes dropped down to Alec's mouth. "I haven't kissed you in hours. I might be going into withdrawal."

Alec took the hint and leaned in to brush his lips across Magnus'. "It's been more like an hour and a half. Maybe two, tops."

"Hours!" Magnus said in a sing song. He pushed at Alec's chest and Alec stumbled back until his knees hit the couch. When Alec sat down, Magnus perched over him with one knee on either side of Alec's legs.

Alec dropped his hands to Magnus' hips, enjoying the solid shift of muscle in his grip. "We were making out for at least an hour before we were interrupted and that's not to mention before we left here in the first place."

 _"Hours,"_ Magnus sighed against Alec's mouth. Predictably, Magnus' hands slid up and into Alec's hair and Alec shivered at the gentle scratch of nails against his scalp. Body and mind both pleasantly anchored, he settled back into the couch and let Magnus do as he pleased.

Magnus had pretty much been doing as he pleased all evening and Alec was enjoying it tremendously. The process of getting ready to go out had been a drawn out affair with enough kissing related distractions that they'd nearly been late to Magnus' consultation. After they'd finally made it to Pandemonium and Magnus had wrapped up his work, Alec had been happy to find a seat and send him to find his someone else to be his dance partner. Dancing was fun, but if Alec was dancing with Magnus, then he couldn't watch Magnus move, and watching Magnus move was a treat Alec had been hungry for.

He'd been half drunk on slow burn lust before they'd even arrived and once Magnus had finally started dancing, it hadn't taken long for the rest of Alec's brain to turn to ash. Meanwhile, Magnus had clearly been enjoying himself, occasionally making eye contact with Alec over the shoulder of whoever he was dancing with and smirking. Catia had come by eventually to say hi and Alec had tried to hold a conversation with her but it had been a complete failure. She'd just laughed at him and gone to recruit help; the cheerful volunteers she'd rounded up had made _sure_ Alec was completely and thoroughly wrecked by putting Magnus through his paces. Once they'd finally drug Alec out to the dance floor to take possession of a breathless, exhilarated Magnus, Alec wasn't sure he'd have noticed if a demon waltzed right past him. It hadn't been long before he and Magnus had found a dark spot to… take a breather.

Magnus pulled back from Alec's mouth just enough to ask, "Have I told you that you look amazing tonight?"

"The fact we barely made it out of the loft in the first place and how you failed to keep your hands to yourself communicated that pretty well." Not that Alec had been any different, but that was beside the point.

"Hey! I kept my hands entirely to myself inside the walls of the Institute, thank you."

"And I know how hard that was for you," Alec said solemnly.

Magnus leered at him. "Very, very—"

Alec put a finger over Magnus' lips and smiled. "No."

Magnus threw his head back and laughed again. Alec took advantage of it to lean in to nip at the bared skin of Magnus' throat. He murmured against it, "I suppose you think you deserve a reward."

"Honestly, Alexander—!" Magnus started, and then broke off with a surprised yip when Alec deliberately fell sideways on the couch, dragging Magnus down with him. Once Magnus was settled on the cushions with one leg up over the back of the couch, one foot on the floor, and Alec between his thighs, he finished, "I always deserve a reward."

"Hmmm, you went to so much work getting me into these pants," Alec punctuated that statement with a nudge of his hips, just in case Magnus had forgotten what pants Alec might be talking about, "does getting me out of them count as a reward?"

"Oh definitely," Magnus said, tugging Alec's head back down for more kissing. After a few distracting minutes, he pulled back enough to look sheepishly up at Alec. "I have to confess, though, if I'd known we'd end up at the Institute tonight, I would have at least used a little less glitter and a longer shirt."

Alec felt his cheeks heat up under some of said glitter and he ducked his head. "Oh, well, that was," he coughed and then peeked back up. "That was pretty entertaining."

Magnus gasped, his eyes going wide. _"Alexander._ Did you _like_ showing off?!"

"Well, it's not something I would have set out to do on purpose, not quite like that, but…" He shrugged. "Mom gave me the chance to go change and I said no. I didn't mind negotiating the treaty but the Institute has had enough of that me lately, they'll survive some of this me, too. It wasn't like Ívarr was going to mind." Not to mention it was all downright conservative considering some of the things Izzy and Jace had paraded around in over the years.

Magnus snickered. "Ívarr was being very respectable."

"He was, wasn't he? I almost didn't recognize him when he walked in."

"Anyway, back to more important matters. Does this all mean I'm going to get you back into these pants at some point? Preferably on a night that doesn't end at the Institute?"

Alec laughed. "You really like these pants." He dropped his head back down so he could nibble along Magnus' jaw line.

"No, no, I like what's in the pants," Magnus said, wrapping one leg around Alec's hips, the heel of his boot pointedly nudging Alec's ass. "They just display it well."

Alec tugged gently  at Magnus earlobe with his teeth. "Speaking of what's in our pants are we going to make it to bed? Because I think we should try. Soon."

Magnus groaned. "That was terrible, but yes, presuming you move."

"Oh, right." Alec backed up off the couch and offered Magnus a hand up.

They struggled out of their boots and then Magnus was afraid he was already in a kiss shortage again, so it all got tricky, but Alec's shirt at least made it off on the way to the bedroom. Alec had just gotten Magnus' shirt unbuttoned when he was suddenly being pushed back on the bed, then Magnus pulled back to Alec's ankles and started nipping his way up Alec's legs in a pants appreciation tour. Alec propped himself up on his elbows so he could watch. By the time Magnus had made it all the way up and started nipping at Alec's stomach, his necklaces were dragging across Alec's crotch and, fuck, that still very much worked for Alec. He couldn't feel much of them but just seeing it was enough to make him break out into a sweat and make his cock twitch.

Alec was suddenly dealing with the resurgent consequences of the heavy petting they'd been doing for most of the evening before duty interrupted. He cleared his throat. "Somehow I think my pants are staying on for a while—"

"Excellent guess," Magnus said against one of Alec's nipples. He slid one hand under Alec's ass and squeezed.

"—but can we at least take yours off?"

Magnus didn't answer, but he did immediately pull away. Music started up from nowhere in particular as Magnus climbed up to stand on the bed and started slowly stripping his clothes off to the beat.

Alec wanted to be amused by the production but this was Magnus dancing _and_ removing clothes. He really, really needed Magnus to do that for him someday when Alec wasn't already so fucking distracted. Probably while standing on the floor, too. He was pretty sure it was at least half magic that let Magnus get very tight pants off while balanced on a mattress without toppling over.

Finally naked, Magnus dropped back down with a knee on either side of Alec's hips. Thankfully, he unfastened Alec's pants and adjusted his cock to lay more comfortably before he summoned the lube and ordered Alec to stretch him out.

"So bossy," Alec tossed the lube to the side, slid his hands around Magnus' neck, and pulled him down in kissing range. "So impatient."

Magnus groaned. "This is going to be payback for the dancing earlier tonight, isn't it?"

"I have no idea what you mean," Alec said, biting gently at Magnus' lips and rolling them over so Magnus was laid out under him.

Magnus groaned again but let him slow everything down.

Alec paused to situate a pillow under Magnus' lower back, then fitted his hips more comfortably between Magnus' thighs and settled in to some slow, leisurely kissing. It was easy to be patient with this, a process that sank into his belly like honey. It was especially easy with the sweet pay-off of Magnus falling apart in his arms.

It took time, but once Magnus relaxed a bit, Alec reached for the lube and did actually start stretching him out, every movement slow and deliberate. While he worked, Alec tongued his way down Magnus' neck and breast bone to spend some time on each nipple. Magnus had said he'd pierced them both before and, oh, Alec wanted to see that someday. He had detoured further down to lick briefly at Magnus' hard cock and nip at the sharp crease of his thigh when Magnus, sounding thready and desperate, said, _"Enough,_ Alec."

Surfacing from the haze, Alec realized he was starting to feel a bit desperate himself. He slid his hand out and backed off the bed so he could finally get his pants off. Magnus offered vocal disappointment over their removal.

Alec snorted. "You're in no condition to appreciate them anyway."

"Fine," Magnus grumbled, "get up here and let me appreciate your cock instead."

"Oh my god."

Alec crawled up and settled back against the headboard. Magnus rolled up and swung a leg over to straddle Alec's hips again, then leaned in to kiss him for a moment before leaning back and starting to slowly take Alec's cock inside him. Alec rested his hands on Magnus' hips and let him set the pace.

Once Magnus had made it all the way down, he started riding Alec's cock, raising up and settling back down, over and over, with some kind of roll to his hips that punched the air out of Alec's lungs. Alec dropped his head back and let his eyes close for a moment, trying to breathe, but then opened them again. He couldn't not watch, despite or because of the feeling it was kicking up in his chest, the way it was all fizzing in his brain, the way it was making his thigh muscles shake. Magnus was always the most beautiful person in a room, but sometimes, like here and now, he was so beautiful Alec couldn't look away.

Magnus was arched back, face a rictus of approaching ecstasy as he gasped for air, sweat trickling down his temples and chest, his hands trembling where Alec had taken them for him to brace against. The rings they both still wore pinched between their fingers and clicked together and Magnus' chains and baubles slid and shifted with each roll of his body. Alec bit back a whine. He could feel his own orgasm threatening at the edges, an urgency in his brain and between his legs.He gasped out, "Can I—?"

Magnus let go of Alec's right hand and managed, _"Please"_

Alec dropped his hand to Magnus' cock, swore, and freed his other hand to fumble for the lube while Magnus growled with impatience. A few excruciating seconds later, he finally had a slicked up hand around Magnus' cock. It was a downhill slide from there. Magnus wrapped one of his own hands around Alec's, tightening his grip even more and a few minutes later he cried out as he came. As he did, his body tightened down around Alec's cock and Alec completely lost his breath for a moment. Magnus went still, gasping for air. Alec was shaking, his body wound up to the tipping point and just waiting to be pushed over.

Finally, Magnus looked down with un-glamoured eyes, smiled smugly, and drew one finger through the streaks on Alec's chest. "And what would you like, sweetheart?"

Alec groaned, hips thrusting up without conscious thought, the two brain cells he had left completely stalling out at the question.

Magnus smirked and leaned up to run his wet finger across Alec's lip even as he raised back up and sank back down on Alec's cock again. Alec whimpered and caught Magnus' finger in his mouth, sucking it clean. He grabbed a hold of Magnus' hips again, which were moving with intent. After that, it wasn't long before Alec lost all semblance of control and he just hung on through the white hot crash of pleasure.

He drifted back down slowly, feeling shivery, like he'd overdosed on orgasm and his body didn't know what to do with all of it. Magnus slid off and collapsed at his side, then leaned up to kiss him deeply before Alec could even properly move to meet him partway.  It was complete bliss. There was a giddy joy in his brain, a sweet edge to every lax muscle, and the solid weight of Magnus draped over him. Magnus' slid his lips to Alec's ear and began whispering nonsense about how beautiful Alec was of all things.

Eventually he felt the gentle sparks along his skin that was Magnus' magic cleaning them off and Alec finally rolled over. He slid his hands to either side of Magnus' head so he could kiss him properly for a while despite the drowsiness starting to pull at him. He'd no sooner made contact, though, than he pulled back and said, "I suppose the pants aren't half bad." He even more or less managed to keep a straight face.

Magnus grinned. "The pants are _fantastic,"_ he said, hooking one leg over Alec's hip and pulling him closer.


	5. Fallout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alec fulfills the obligation to execute judgment within his domain.

Izzy had never liked waiting. The good thing about doing it in Ops, though, was that she had hotlinks to all the important spots around town and she could make sure everything was quiet while she was stuck in a holding pattern: the out-of-the-way console she'd parked herself at was currently displaying outside views of the loft, Simon's mother's house, the Hotel duMort, Luke's apartment, the Hunter's Moon, and Pandemonium. It was the middle of the afternoon so, other than a notable flash visible through the windows of the loft, there wasn't much of interest going on.

Jace ambled up carrying a very large bowl of popcorn and dropped into the free chair next to her. "You can flip it over to the security feed now."

"Oh good." She reached over and took a handful of popcorn with one hand, then started navigating the necessary security access with the other.

The monitor bank lit up with a dozen different angles of the training room. Narrowing it down, she selected six that would provide a good overview without dividing their attention too much and gave those feeds the screen real estate. While she was doing that, she made sure to leave all the cameras open to additional connections rather than restricting them to the current workstation.

"Uh, Iz, we don't have that many cameras in there."

"Well, we _didn't."_ She leaned back in her chair, kicking her feet up on the ledge. "I added a few. Now we can record sparring sessions at useful angles for training purposes."

Jace shook his head and smiled, but it was thin effort. His eyes were clear without a trace of gold and, given there was no Clary in the room yet, he and Alec were evidently making the effort to keep to themselves for this. She was still annoyed she hadn't noticed how much they were having to concentrate to stay separate before Jace had outright told her; she'd been distracted lately, in a good way, but it was painfully obvious in hindsight.

On the monitors, six people that Jace had "randomly" assigned to a sparring session filed into the training room. Of the six, three were new assignees to the New York Institute, two had only been in New York for a couple of months, and one was just an asshole. Well, they were all assholes, but Fields was an entrenched asshole while the rest might still be salvageable — emphasis on the 'might'.

Izzy leaned up and took another handful of popcorn. "You never did tell me who specifically earned your and Alec's wrath." Not that this wasn't about the incident with Nyles the other night, but that would have just put Fields and Matthews in the room. This was cleaning house and they were sitting here bearing witness no less, so there had to be another inciting factor. Given the timing, her best guess was someone pissing Jace off with comments related to Alec showing up wearing skin tight pants and glitter while Magnus ogled his ass the whole way through Ops. Everything Izzy had overheard or been told directly had been _very_ complimentary — and rightfully so — but she'd been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Jace drummed his fingers on the console, glanced over at her, and finally said, "Most of its been subtle, and Fields always thinks he's starting shit that can't come back on him, but Landon actually ran his mouth right in front of me. He thought I'd agree with him."

Of course he did. Landon was still fairly new and only socially adept to the point of following Fields' charismatic, but terrible, example. Izzy had hopes he could be salvaged if they could pry him away from the worst influence. "Fields didn't used to be this bad." She grimaced. "I mean, I put Nyles in his patrol group the other night when I had to reshuffle everybody. I never thought Fields would just flat out not do his job. I know he's an asshole but I thought he could be a fucking professional."

She'd been _pissed_ when the patrol had returned with Nyles' limping from a lot of residual pain and Fields' clear lack of concern. He'd had an excuse ready, but it was lip service. She'd sent Nyles off to rest and read the remainder of the them the riot act for all the good it did. The worst part was Alec hadn't even blamed her for it; she damn well deserved her own punishment for making such a bad call.

Jace shook his head. "He was always this bad, he just wasn't as obvious about it and he knew better than to say anything to either of us directly. Matthews was still trying to take the blame for distracting Fields earlier today and Fields might actually have him convinced it was his fault. If Sam and Lily hadn't seen more than Fields thought, he'd actually have plausible deniability. Fields is careful around me and who he says things to. He tows the line on orders and shuts up if I walk by. Clary has actually heard him say shit before, though, back when she hadn't been here long, and one of his little sisters is in Max's training group. That was… the second censure, I think."

Izzy knew what it took to get Max's temper up. "Yeah, I missed that detail. We should have thrown Max a party."

"No parties," Jace said firmly. "Max needs to stop getting censures or he and Alec are both going to be in more serious trouble. If he's going to break someone's nose, it should be on the damn training field. Not to mention he tried to use an iratze on a bad break of one of his own cheekbones. It didn't heal it right, but he hid it with a glamour and didn't fess up about it until he got back here two days later. Then Magnus had to fix it."

She stared at him. "Where the fuck have I been?"

"Running the armory, running drills, head down in a microscope, killing demons, and mooning over Simon. Your schedule's been packed, Iz."

Her schedule was always packed, but still. It was too easy to miss things with Max spending so much time elsewhere. "Relatedly, has Alec made any progress on Max staying in New York? Oh, crap, I almost forgot!" She dropped her feet down, pulled up the controls, and flipped on the new audio feed.

Alec had appeared in the training room, surprising everyone already there who had expected Jace. Izzy they wouldn't have thought twice about, for that matter, but it had been months since Alec had led a sparring session. Judging by their lack of concern despite the change in plans, they still hadn't realized they'd been called up for a formal reckoning — Fields' reckoning in particular, and the other five of them as an explicit warning. It was punishment, technically, at least for Fields, but as a display it had little to do with someone who was unlikely to change his stripes. This was a reminder of Alec's law, a very visible defense of a particular side, and a fulfillment of his obligation to execute judgment within his domain.

Izzy wasn't impressed with the lack of awareness. They'd kept the whole thing quiet so Fields wouldn't see it coming, but at this point it should have been really goddamn obvious. For one thing, Alec had swapped out his suit for soft training pants, which anyone would have expected, but he was also barefoot and shirtless. Boots were good for traction and protection, but they were also heavy and inflexible; Alec was notably faster in a controlled environment when he was barefoot and he had enough experience to protect his feet in the process. Likewise, shirts were extra fabric for your opponent to grab whereas sweat slick skin was a lot harder to hold onto. Alec clearly hadn't come to play. If that weren't enough, the hard set of his shoulders and his unyielding expression was as good as an institute wide alarm.

"No, no progress on Max," Jace said. "The latest is that Alicante knows we don't have anybody to devote to him full time, so they're still withholding final approval."

Izzy scoffed. "That's bullshit. There's plenty of Institutes without a full time instructor and they always get rubber stamped. What the hell."

In the training room, Alec was starting slow like it was an actual training session. This wasn't about breaking them, this was about them yielding to his authority.

Jace shook his head. "It's an excuse. This is still about keeping Maryse there so they can watch her closer."

"She's working for the Consul! Where do they think she's going to go?!"

"She's very close to telling them to go fuck themselves, runes or no runes, and you know it. They know it."

Okay, Izzy could concede that. Normally her mom was damn good at playing the game, but Izzy had seen the cracks for months. Now, apparently, they were showing enough even the powers that be in Alicante could see them.

"Max is the last fall back they have, but, if we can get around the full time instructor thing, then they're out of legal options to block his formal training happening here."

Clary appeared behind Jace, her hands settling on his shoulders and her thumbs resting on the bare skin of his neck. Izzy watched as he lost some of the tension he'd been carrying. Then Clary leaned forward to look closer at the monitors, which gave Izzy a nice view of her cleavage. It was excellent cleavage. Simon totally agreed.

"Have those cameras always been there?" Clary asked.

"No," Jace said as Alec squared off with Landon.

"So that's why Max was running wires through the walls last week."

Izzy stared at her. "You saw Max drilling into the walls and laying wires and you didn't even ask why?"

"I figured Alec approved it," Clary said with a shrug.

Jace laughed and tilted his head back to look at her. "You're assuming he asked permission first."

"…that's a fair point."

Fifteen minutes later, Alec had already put two people on the floor. He was still going relatively easy on them, but his body language was unyielding. Everyone in the training room besides the guest of honor was starting to look worried as Max slipped up to the Ops viewing party with Magnus in tow.

"There you are!" Izzy exclaimed, relieved he'd finally appeared. She needed him to throw at the cranky Alec that was sure to emerge from the training room.

"I was delayed," Magnus said as Max grabbed a chair from nearby and pushed it over for him. "And either Max has gotten better at lying to me—"

"Hey, I'm a perfectly good liar."

"—or he is equally unaware of why you insisted I should drop by the Institute this afternoon. However, I absolutely agree that Alec in the training room is a prime viewing opportunity."

Max, looking at the monitors, said, "I really didn't know, but I just figured it out."

Magnus dropped into the chair with the same control he did everything and Jace offered him the bowl of popcorn. Magnus raised an eyebrow and Jace shrugged. "It's actually for Max. If we don't keep him fed right now, he starts chewing on the furniture."

Max chipperly confiscated the popcorn and perched on one of Izzy's knees. Then he paused with a handful of popcorn halfway to his mouth. "Wait, I'm on make-sure-my-dumbass-brothers-eat duty today and it's afternoon. Did you two have lunch?"

"Yeah," Jace answered absently.

Max nodded far too trustingly at Jace's answer and looked back to the monitors.

Izzy glanced up at Clary, who nodded back at her. Jace and Alec wouldn't lie about it on purpose, but it wouldn't have been the first time they were mistaken lately. It was ironic, actually, that they remembered to feed Max more than themselves, but they weren't feeling hunger or thirst themselves very often and there were plenty of distractions in an average day to keep them from noticing they hadn't eaten. Any Shadowhunter on active duty burned a lot of energy through physical activity and by using runes, but the unstable parabatai bond seemed to be using up even more right now. A few weeks ago, Jace had passed out in the middle of a fight and they'd realized neither he nor Alec had eaten in the previous 24 hours. After that, Izzy had made up a rotating schedule for her, Clary, and Max to double check. A few days ago she'd realized their answers weren't always reliable and now she was very close to just assigning runners to follow them around.

"I do like how they're apparently all surprised he's kicking their asses," Max said.

Izzy winced and shifted another knee under his butt to spread out his weight. _Angel_ but he was getting heavy. Not to mention taller. She swiveled the chair at an angle so she could see the monitors again. "They're new," she pointed out, "well, mostly new, and Alec spends a lot of time behind a desk these days so they haven't seen him in action much. I don't know about Fields. Either he's been thinking Alec's going soft or it's selective memory."

"Alec's not my fucking parabatai as an act of charity,” Jace snapped.

Izzy froze at such an unexpected insult, her hand immediately tightening around the whip that dropped into her palm. As if that was what she'd said! As if that was something she would even _think!_

Max's hand suddenly landed on her wrist, pinning it to the arm of the chair. He leaned back and murmured, "Totally sure that wasn't about you, Iz."

She glared up at him, but then her brain kicked back in. Oh, christ, that had to have been what Landon said, or at least implied.

Clary threaded her fingers up through Jace's hair and she must have pulled a bit; Jace followed the motion, letting his head drop back against the chair. "If you're both mad, you'll break through regardless," she warned quietly. "And his adrenaline's already up."

Izzy watched Jace stare fixedly up at the ceiling for a moment, then take a deep breath and blow it back out before looking back down at the monitors. Clary didn't look away from the screens but she hummed as the scowl on Jace's face eased slightly.

Back in the training session, Alec was methodically wiping the floor with the other six people in the room. No one present was unskilled, and even Izzy would describe Fields as good, but none of them could match half of Alec's hours of training over the years, let alone his hands on experience. He ramped up and gave them the advantage of four against one but it still only took him about 10 minutes to lay all four of them out, critiquing their forms the entire time. Once they'd picked themselves back up, he sent them to the sidelines and called up Fields alone.

Izzy looked at the corner of the main feed, which listed four active connections in addition to their own: two local and two remote. She suspected the local connections were in Ops itself. They were all staying out of Izzy's sight line, but it had been quieter than usual since just before Alec had entered the training room — probably about the time he passed by the mezzanine railing and everyone started putting two and two together. Which she'd been counting on.

Reckonings at the Institute level were usually an administrative thing, but this one had a clear message for everyone who answered to Alec. Now, with Alec and Fields squaring up one on one, Ops went dead quiet. Fields looked pissed off and determined, which wasn't going to do him any favors; he made mistakes when his temper got the better of him. Alec, on the other hand, looked like divine retribution.

Magnus hummed thoughtfully. "So what did these poor, unfortunate souls do? And, I think, this one in particular?"

"Earned it," Jace said.

Alec toyed with him for a few minutes. Fields tried to go on the offensive with a flurry of strikes in a seemingly random pattern, but Alec was faster and he didn't yield so much as an inch. It was a poor game plan born out of frustration: Fields had a bit more weight than Alec, but Alec had several inches of height advantage and more actual muscle. Alec let Fields try two more charges, neither of which were any less straightforward, before he put an end to it. With a flick of his staff, Alec flipped Fields' weapon out of his hands and then struck out twice — once to Fields' right calf and once to his right shoulder.

The snap of bone was impressively clear over the feed. So was Field's howl of pain as he dropped, his right shoulder clearly dislocated. In Ops, there were a handful of quiet cheers that rose up from two different spots roughly south and northwest of Izzy.

Magnus was squinting at the monitors. "He could have pulled either of those hits."

"Yes, he could have," Jace agreed.

"Funny how those are the same injuries Nyles got the other night when Fields was supposed to be watching his back," Clary said lightly.

Jace, taking his cue, replied, "What an amazing coincidence."

Magnus gave them both sharp, considering looks.

Alec had knelt down next to Fields and was failing to look genuinely concerned. "Oh, wow, those kind of injuries smart, don't they? That's a pretty significant break and an iratze isn't going take care of it. You'll definitely have to use a bone set on it. I'd offer to heal it for you, but this is a good opportunity so I'll let you do it yourself." Alec patted him on the cheek, stood up, and walked back to the other five who's expressions were ranging from grim to outright shocked in Landon's case. No one could fail to connect those dots and they all looked like they were mentally tallying their sins.

"What are the chances Fields' stele is in his left pocket?" Clary asked, tilting her head like it might help her see around the curve of Fields' leg.

"Zero," said Izzy. "For one thing, he's right handed and, for another, I guarantee Alec already knows where it is. It's either in a right side pocket or on the bench."

"Five dollars says it's on the bench," Max said.

Izzy made a mental note replace the remaining older cameras: the resolution of the newer models showed the look of murder on Fields face just beautifully.

Bone setting runes were a bitch. Iratzes were painless, but they could only heal fractures. Bone setting runes were excruciating, but they could heal total breaks — as long as it was a clean snap. If it was a _complicated_ break, then there was a good chance the bone would set wrong and you'd have even more problems. Fields' had obviously been fairly clean, but the inevitable spasm from the pain meant there was no good choice between resetting a bone while you had a dislocated shoulder or resetting a shoulder while you had a broken bone. Not to mention the pain lingered for at least a day with both injuries.

Slowly rolling over and reorienting himself, Fields used one arm to drag himself the twenty feet to the bench to retrieve his stele. Alec ignored him entirely and demonstrated a move that three of them didn't know. By the time Fields had set the bone and re-set his shoulder, he was lying prone on the floor and not even trying to move.

"It could be worse," Izzy mused. "The broken bone could be attached to the dislocated shoulder."

Jace grimaced. "Yeah, been there. Definitely worse."

Alec wrapped up the session and had the ones still upright put the staffs away before returning to duty. Then he walked over and nudged Fields with his foot. "Good job," he said, deadpan.

He stepped over Fields and, as soon as Alec looked away, Fields hand lashed out for Alec's ankle. Clary let out a surprised noise but Jace didn't even tense up. Izzy didn't either; they'd trained him out of falling for that maneuver years ago. Alec had Fields' arm in a heartbeat and a brief scrabble later, Fields was face down, one arm pinned under him and the other, recently broken limb twisted up his back. Alec said something in Fields' ear too low for the mic to pick up, then stood, grabbed his hoodie off the bench, and walked out of the training room.

Izzy cut the feeds and the monitors went black. "Fields has two weeks to shape-up." Not that he would, but there were only so many reasons Alec and Jace could use to justify a transfer to some unpleasant and preferably isolated assignment. They'd need proof. Two weeks was the minimum she'd need to manufacture and possibly age the documentation for whatever reason they decided to go with.

Jace shook his head. "It's been two years, Iz. Two weeks isn't going to make a difference, and it's not Alec he's going to take it out on between now and then. I don't even trust him on the grounds, let alone on patrol."

"Oh, I'll back you on putting him up for punitive transfer now if you've got a file."

"I've got one," Max said.

"Really?" Izzy asked, a bit surprised.

Max shrugged. "People don't necessarily notice me when I'm quiet, especially when I'm under a console or on top a scaffolding, and you're the one that told me the most useful information is the stuff you track. We'll have to sort through it, but I think there's stuff in there we can make work."

Huh. Izzy hadn't realized he'd been listening to her advice that closely. Which probably proved part of his statement, actually.

"Given Fields' Alicante connections, this'll have to be pretty tight," Jace said. "If we suspend him or throw him in a cell, he'll have time to organize an upstream backlash. Not to mention a suspension would mean we couldn't keep an eye on him. I'll find somewhere to stash him for a few days but ichor duty may be the best bet. It doesn't scream 'imminent transfer' so he won't suspect anything until it's already happening."

"He's still going to be in a position to cause grief in the meantime," Clary pointed out. "Underhill can handle him if needed, but is there anybody besides Nyles and Dawid we need to keep him away from until we can ship him out?"

 _"Me,"_ Alec snarled, coming up behind Jace. Izzy jumped half a foot along with Max, Magnus, and Clary.

"Your situational awareness is terrible," Jace said, like he didn't have an unfair advantage.

Alec looked sternly at Max. "I am absolutely sure you're supposed to be in tactics right now."

"I was observing practical tactics in action," Max said, sounding as unrepentant as ever.

"Is that what Antoine would say if I asked him?"

"Eh, probably not."

"Go"

"Going"

After Max had disappeared back to the library, Izzy said, "You know Antoine isn't up to the challenge of corralling Max." Alec had pulled on his hoodie but left it unzipped and she could see the angle of Magnus' head in the corner of her vision. He was not looking up at Alec's face.

"Yeah, but he was the only one qualified that I could free up for long enough to get through the whole section. Magnus, I didn't expect you here today. What brings you to the Institute?" It was both amusing and disturbing how much he sounded like their mother when she knew full well what they'd been up to and was waiting to see how creative an excuse they could come up with. Sure, Izzy could volunteer that she'd invited him, but where would the fun be in that?

Izzy looked over just as Magnus froze, eyes jumping from Alec's sweaty bare chest and refocusing on his face. "Uh, checking the… wards? I was just waiting for you to be free."

"Is that what we're calling it now?" Izzy murmured.  Magnus smiled brightly and pretended he couldn't hear her.

"Wards, huh," Alec said. "Well then, let's go check the wards."

 

* * *

 

Twenty minutes later, Alec was still in a bad mood and far too aware of how much work was waiting impatiently for his attention, but kissing Magnus was going a long way toward making his day a little less annoying. He was half sitting on his desk with one hip hitched up over the edge, which left just enough room for Magnus to fit snugly between his thighs. Magnus was leveraging the position to demonstrate his enthusiasm for Alec's unzipped hoodie and loose training pants — if one could go by his roaming hands, anyway. Alec's own hands were exploring the curve of Magnus' ass hidden by the hem of his jacket.

"We're not actually having sex, Magnus," Alec murmured even as he flirted with further temptation by nipping at Magnus' jaw line.

Magnus pouted. "Spoilsport." He sounded more breathless than their activity really warranted, but Alec knew full well everything about the current situation was pushing Magnus' buttons.

Alec smirked, slid one hand up to the small of Magnus' back, and whispered in his ear, "I think you have a thing for my desk."  He heard his tablet chime with an incoming message even as two fire messages arrived. One hand still comfortably fitted to Magnus' ass, he managed to catch both flaming papers one handed, then tossed them on the desk as soon as they'd extinguished themselves.

"To be fair," Magnus said, his voice decidedly strained, "it's more like I have a thing for you pretty much everywhere."

Then his phone started ringing and Alec pulled back with a groan. "If it's not the Clave yelling about policy, it's scheduling or budgets, or it's Luke calling because someone got picked up for 'gang activity' again, or it's Raphael saying yes, there's _another_ rogue vampire nest, but he absolutely has a handle on this situation. Really, there's no need for the institute to get involved, he said he'd deal with it, it's completely under control, or, or, or." He leaned in and kissed Magnus again, slowly, ignoring his phone chirping about two incoming text messages. After savoring it for one last minute, though, he sat back. "Okay, I really do have to work. Taking the time to deal with Fields was bad enough. If I don't get through some of this and anything comes up tonight, I'll be stuck here for three days trying to get caught up."

"Fiiiiiiine," Magnus said, stepping back and straightening his jacket. Then he paused and instead removed the jacket entirely, loosened the tuck of his shirt, took out one earring, and put a careful smear in one corner of his eyeliner.

Alec, thoroughly puzzled, asked, "What are you doing?"

"Maintaining my reputation, of course. Do you know where Izzy would be? I need to go smirk as I walk past her."

_"Leave."_


	6. Results and Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke finds out, everyone learns something, and whisky glasses are notably not thrown.

Izzy sat at the bar in The Hunter's Moon and watched the sliver of the pool table she could see reflected in the mirror behind the bar. Alec passed through the reflection, circling the table, and a moment later Jace passed through going the opposite direction. She couldn't see the bright gold shine of their eyes from this distance and angle, but she didn't need to.

Playing pool had turned out to be a good, low key way to feed the bond — between meal snack, as Jace said. Magnus was Alec's only real competition for a regular game, but Alec and Jace had created a weird sort of challenge that involved the bond halfway open. Those games weren't about beating each other, but about testing how easily they could adjust the necessary power and angles between two different bodies without the ricocheting energy of a fight. Today, though, halfway open hadn't happened; they'd been all in as soon as the three of them had walked through the door. Now the parabatai were taking turns, alternating shots in one run of the table after another.

She'd never actually seen the bond wide open outside of a fight and it was surprisingly unnerving. They weren't Alec and Jace like this. Their body language was all wrong, for one thing, but so was the general silence. It made sense once she thought about it: they didn't talk to each other anymore than a person would walk around talking to themselves. Regardless of anything making sense, though, it was all setting up a knot in Izzy's stomach.

Luke suddenly slid onto the stool next to Izzy and she nearly jumped. She hadn't even noticed him come in.

Maia brought him a beer and gave her a pointed look. Izzy sighed; Maia had called him.

Luke sipped at his beer. "You're gloomy."

Izzy hummed noncommittally.

"Does it have anything to do with Thing 1 and Thing 2 in the back?"

Izzy looked over at him and frowned. She knew it was some kind of mundane reference — Clary had called them that before, too — but she still didn't know what it referred _to_. She made a mental note to look it up later.

Luke smiled. "Sorry, does it have anything to do with the two parabatai currently playing a weirdly quiet game of pool?"

Izzy looked back down at her drink and fiddled with the glass. As a stall, it lacked any subtlety, but Luke wasn't a werewolf in this situation, or that wasn't the important thing at any rate. It was more notable that he was an ex-Shadowhunter and a former parabatai. On top of that, he was Clary's father. She piled politics and secrets and potential ally all together in the risk assessment pool… and how they hadn't actually told their mother yet. Damnit.

Luke was still sitting there, patiently sipping at his beer like she hadn't totally failed to answer him, when Jace — "Jace" — came up to the bar. He quietly ordered a couple of beers from Maia and she went to get them out. Jace's head was tipped down to hide the gold of his irises, but Izzy watched Luke duck his own head just enough to get a look at them.

Maia returned and handed him the beers. "What, no shots today?" she drawled.

Jace — the parabatai? — kept his chin tucked but shook his head once. "Nah, not tonight," he said as quietly as before, hiding the way their accents got all mixed up when they were like this. Jace's speech suddenly picking up the influence of Alec's purer New York accent was a pretty blatant giveaway that something was weird to anyone who knew them. He headed back to the pool table and Maia gave Izzy another look.

Izzy tried to smile but it came out as more of a grimace. Honestly, she was impressed they'd remembered beer drinking was an integral part of the activity rather than just sitting down the first glasses she'd handed them and forgetting entirely.

Maia left to help someone at the other end of the bar and Izzy came to her decision. "She called you, huh?"

"I've been in a unique position to suspect something was going to come up. I told her to keep and eye out and let me know if anything did." Luke's voice was perfectly genial.

Izzy took the time to double check no one else was in earshot, then said, "If they're both drinking the same beer, then it doesn't matter who picks up what." Luke glanced at her but stayed silent. Finally Izzy added, "We thought it would be better with other people around. In hindsight, it wasn't a well thought out plan."

"They're falling into it." She looked over at him, but he just shook his head. "Rumors I heard back in the day, that's all. Urban legends."

"Yeah, maybe. We don't know for sure. It's bigger than that though. I think it has to do with Valentine's angel blood experiments for a couple of reasons."

"How bad is it?"

"They can keep themselves out of it if they concentrate, but they need Clary or Magnus around to do it reliably. Clary was supposed to come with us. She got held up."

And that was just what _they_ knew. It wasn't the bomb she had waiting to drop on them. She picked up her phone to text Clary and Magnus. Clary replied immediately that she was almost to The Hunter's Moon. "Do you have anywhere to be for the next couple of hours?" she asked Luke.

"No?"

"Some test results came back today and I could use someone with a level head and your experience in the room."

"Okay." He took a last drink of his beer and pushed it away. "I'm guessing you don't want to do it here."

Clary walked in, waving at Maia behind the bar before circling around to kiss Luke on the cheek. Jace immediately appeared at her side, his hand sliding into hers, shoulders losing their tension, and eyes settling back to their usual blue and green. Izzy watched Luke take note of the clearly tight grip he had on Clary's hand even as Jace started a conversation with Maia. Maia was playing along but her expression said she was perfectly well aware it was all bullshit.

Alec came up next to Izzy, greeting Luke as if he'd had no idea Luke was there.

Izzy's phone chimed with a text from Magnus that he was home and would be expecting them. "Okay, we're all heading to the loft."

Jace and Alec looked at her with similar, but mercifully not identical, expressions of surprise.

 

* * *

 

“Luke!” Magnus greeted him with a smile. “I didn’t expect you.”

Izzy, walking in right behind Luke, explained, “We ran into him at the Hunter's Moon and I asked him to come with us. He has a relevant perspective.”

Magnus acknowledged that with a tilt of his head, but his smile faded.

In the lounge, Jace had found a chair and Clary had found Jace’s lap, as usual. As a habit went, it was amusing, but with the whole anchor thing, it was also convenient. Izzy hadn’t even realized Clary had been doing it at every opportunity recently until she started paying attention.

When everyone was seated except Magnus and Izzy, Magnus started to offer drinks but Izzy interrupted. “No, wait, just let me get through this first. Sit down, please.”

Magnus settled lightly next to Alec on the couch with a slight frown.

She decided the best thing was probably just to launch right in. “It’s about all the blood samples I’ve been taking since the lull. I’ve been running some… let’s call them cutting edge tests. Cutting edge enough that I didn’t entirely trust the results, but I at least had a strong suspicion. With that suspicion, I went to Cat and she was able to— well, run a magical version of the test.” She cast an apologetic glance at Magnus, who looked startled. “Sorry, Magnus. If was wrong—” She shook her head. She needed to rip the band aid off, as Simon would say. “Never mind. You three,” she pointed at Clary, Jace, and Alec, “have stopped aging.”

There was dead silence. After a good thirty seconds, it was Jace that finally said, “What.”

“Come on, Jace. Both yours and Alec’s scars have disappeared. That didn’t strike you as weird?”

Clary immediately yanked up her shirt sleeve and twisted to look at the back of her elbow. “Huh, mine too.”

Alec shook his head. “There’s a big jump from scars disappearing to- to-”

“Immortal?” Magnus asked. Alec had already taken his hand at some point, which was good since Magnus looked like he needed something to hold onto. His face was almost slack with shock and he was staring blankly at the bookshelf currently making up the wall across from the couch.

While everyone else processed that information in silence, Luke calmly got up from his chair and walked to the bar cart. He picked up one of the decanters, sniffed the contents, and poured a couple of fingers in a glass. Then he carried it over to the couch and handed it Magnus. Magnus took it without looking and, unsurprisingly, straight up drained the glass. Izzy sighed. This was going about as well as she had expected.

Luke frowned at the empty glass Magnus handed him, but he refilled it and walked it back. Three fingers this time, which was a good call.

“My hypothesis, is that as you two,” Izzy pointed at Jace and Clary, “have accessed your extra super special angel empowerments more and more, it’s all gotten stronger. It’s latched on and spread out. Alec’s results are running identical to yours, but we already know how wrapped up it is in the parabatai bond so it's not surprising. Congratulations, the three of you are a little more angel than human now.” Then she walked over and plucked the dangerously tilting glass out of Magnus’ hand and took a large swallow. It was a nice scotch, as it turned out. Far too nice to be drinking it at the rate they were. She took another large swallow.

Clary found her voice and she managed, “Is that why—” before she stopped again.

“The bond is being weird again? Probably. No, almost certainly, I just don’t know _why.”_ She looked at Luke. “Earlier you said they were falling into it.”

Luke shook his head. “There is no precedence for any of this. Not as far as I know. Those were just urban legends. Ghost stories everyone drug out when the Council approved Val and— Valentine and I to take the parabatai runes.”

“Sometimes rumors have a kernel of truth in them,” Izzy said. “I think you’re going to have to talk to the Silent Brothers. Is Brother Zachariah still on sabbatical?"

"Yeah, his year's not up for a few more months," Jace answered.

On the couch, Alec and Magnus were holding hands with a white knuckled grip.

Luke, who was almost as good at keeping a level head in a crisis as her mother, looked fairly calm despite the bombshell. He was standing close beside Clary, though, and had a hand on her shoulder. “I can guess what the Inquisitor will say.”

Jace shook his head. “It’s not an option.”

She’d known either Alec or Jace were going to shoot that down immediately. “Jace, if it means both of your _lives—"_

“No, Iz,” Alec interrupted, “it's most likely not actually an option. The bond doesn’t feel like it goes through the runes like it used to. It hasn’t for a while now. It goes through here,” he tapped the center of his chest, “and here.” He tapped at his head.

She stared at him. “You didn’t think it was important to tell me that?” What the actual fuck. She was going to skin them both.

“No?”

She had been grilling them about the bond for over a _year_ and at no point either of them thought to mention the fundamental feel of it had _changed?_ They were the most frustrating, obstinate—

“We tried dying twice, Iz," Alec said absently, "and that didn’t do it. I don’t know why you’re surprised.”

“I’ve been _asking you—”_ She stopped and reviewed his statement in her head. "Wait, twice?”

Both Alec and Jace were suddenly tense and wide-eyed. Jace actually glanced towards the balcony like he might need an emergency escape route. Oh, they weren’t going to need to worry about immortality because _she was going to kill them._ She glared at them both and drank the rest of the scotch in the glass.

They watched her do it in silence.

A burning anger began rising under Izzy's skin as the fear of some unknown near loss slowly settled like ice in her gut.

They were both looking at her, solemn faced and still utterly silent. She waited them out.

Clary started to say something, but at the first noise, Izzy hissed at her and Clary's mouth snapped shut again.

Izzy walked a couple of steps toward the alcohol only to turn around and walk back. It wasn't alcohol she wanted right now. She set her teeth against the sudden craving and scowled harder at her brothers.

It took another full minute, but Jace finally said, "You were here for it, Iz. That night—" He dropped his head back against the chair and stared at the ceiling. "The night after he'd tried tracking me."

She knew which one he meant, the only one he _could_ mean. She gripped the glass she was holding tighter because she really wanted to throw it and watch it shatter against the wall. Maybe throw it right at the window that had framed Jace sobbing as he held an unconscious and — _angel_ — dying Alec in his arms. Fucking _hell,_ Alec had _died_ right in front of her and she _hadn't even known._

She had to wait a minute until her emotions loosened their choke hold on her throat before she could manage to say, "He didn't lose his protections."

Jace kept staring at the ceiling but he shook his head. "No, but he was gone. He was... he was gone."

"You pulled him back. With the bond."

"Yeah."

Luke went back to bar cart, poured another glass of scotch, and took it to Magnus, who still looked like he was staving off a nervous breakdown by sheer willpower. Magnus took the glass from Luke and drained it. Had _Magnus_ known? Angel, but she hoped he had, hoped Alec had talked to someone about it besides Jace. It was hard to tell on top the immortality freak out he'd already been having. At least Clary didn't look surprised.

“We’ll go talk to the Silent Brothers,” Alec conceded. He was deliberately drawing her attention from Jace. He was probably also hoping to cut down on just how _incredibly_ pissed off she was at them.

She glared at him specifically while walking to the cart. The craving was still there and she'd have to deal with it later, but she went through with refilling the glass this time. It gave her something to do with her hands if nothing else. “The parabatai bond needs to be stabilized and it needs to happen soon. Especially since, given _very_ recent revelations, it could be a weak point. If something happens to Jace, what happens to Alec? If Jace could pull Alec back from _death_ , does it go the other way too?”

Jace's head snapped up. "No, Lake Lyn was after that."

"That was before everything got stronger. Tell me again how tight the connection is between you two now?"

She watched Jace go pale as that thought sunk in. He reached out his hand and Izzy gave him the glass. He drained it and winced. “Magnus, I’m buying you cheap whiskey.”

Magnus was still staring blankly at the bookcase, but he let go of Alec's hand long enough to snap his fingers. A large bottle of Jack Daniels appeared on the coffee table.

“Close enough.”

Izzy looked back at Alec. “Don’t tell them everything.”

“You don’t trust the Silent Brothers?” Alec asked.

“Certain individuals, yes, but as a group they are still a body of the Clave and no one in this room trusts Alicante. Not that much.”

Alec grimaced, but he didn’t disagree.

“The Clave tends to try and destroy what it cannot control,” Magnus said softly. He sighed as he finally shook himself free of his fugue state and leaned forward to sit his glass on the coffee table. “Tell them the condition of the bond a year ago. Tell them you’re sharing experiences and synchronized in a fight, but imply a greater degree of control than you currently have. Don’t mention anchors at all, let alone who they are. Who we are."

“Don’t tell them about the aging thing,” Izzy added. “For the same reasons, but I don’t know how stable it is either. I’m not working with much data in the scheme of things.”

Alec nodded.

On the other side of the room, Clary looked like she was dealing with the life altering information pretty well. She'd had a lot of practice at that sort of thing by now, though. While she talked quietly to Luke, Jace sat there and frowned into the middle distance. He was probably running through a thousand different implications and their options for each, trying to make battle plans for an existential crisis. The part about Alec’s life being tied to his shouldn’t have been news, not after everything that had happened, but, judging by his reaction, it must not have sunk in before now. Or maybe it was because it was one thing to know your parabatai would feel you go, but it was something else to have to keep yourself alive to keep them safe. Jace valued Alec's life far above his own and would die for him without hesitation. Living for him was a more daunting proposition.

The idea that he and Alec were going to be around a lot longer than Izzy could watch over them was something she was still dealing with, and probably would be for a while. They were Shadowhunters and dying young was always a possibility, but immortality being the alternative was a different thing all together. On the one hand, she had it easy: She couldn't imagine being the one left behind. But considering the day would come when she didn't have their backs, she was profoundly grateful the two of them would have each other.

On the couch, Alec hadn't moved. He looked as deep in thought as Jace, but considering how hard he was staring at Magnus' hand in his, she could guess the topic on his mind. When Alec had first shown her the ring he had for Magnus, his eyes had been shining and he'd had the biggest smile she'd ever seen on him. She had been _so_ happy for his obvious joy as he'd redundantly explained it was an engagement token. For Magnus. Because he was going to propose.

It had been adorable.

He'd said he wasn't _too_ worried about Magnus' answer. He'd at least accepted that Magnus was okay with their different life expectancies, or as okay as he could be anyway, as was Alec. Izzy had repeatedly tried to tell him not to be worried at all, that of course Magnus would say yes, but Alec was Alec. This news… changed everything. Best case scenario, it could very, very good for the two of them, but Alec’s head didn’t pivot on a dime.

Izzy went and crouched down in front of him, propping her chin on one of his knees and laying a hand on one of Magnus’.

Alec finally tore his eyes away from he and Magnus’ hands to look down at her. “Hey, Iz.”

“Hey, big brother. It’s gonna be okay.”

He smiled faintly. “You promise?”

“Yeah, I promise. We’ve dealt with crazy stuff before, right? I mean, I’m never going to forget Jace telling me with a straight face that the answer was dancing.”

Alec's smile grew a bit and made it up to his eyes. Magnus’ laugh was more a huff of air than anything, but it still counted.

“The priority right now is getting the bond stabilized. Talk to the Silent Brothers and see if they have any insights they’re willing to part with and we’ll go from there. The rest of it you’ve got plenty of time to tackle.” Potentially lots and _lots_ of time, but she didn’t point that out. He and Magnus were both starting to look a lot calmer, so she was taking it for a win.

Alec leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “I love you, Izzy.”

“As well you should because I am an amazing sister with the patience of a saint.”


	7. Light Bulb Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec is conspired against, important traditions are upheld, and a few things become clear(ish).

Alec had never been so glad to see the vestibule of the New York Institute in his life. He'd spent the last 48 hours tense, or angry, or both, he'd barely slept, and the tight fit of his formal dress shoes wasn't helping a damn thing. Feeling like he was a hundred years old, he sat down his satchel on the flagstones and tossed the garment bag over it. Then he planted his feet as the bond, still on edge from the alertness Alicante required, pulled irritably and tried to draw he and Jace back together despite there being half a world and the nonsense of a portal between them.

"I need to punch something," Jace said as he finally exited into the vestibule. "Or break something. Or both." His own bags hit the floor with even less ceremony. There was the briefest gold haze over Alec's vision as the bond surged and settled. Then, both of them in the relatively safety of the Institute, it immediately dropped down to the lowest pull he'd felt from it in days.

Izzy, with Max in a headlock, looked up and grinned at them. "Hey! Welcome back!" She released Max and rushed up to hug Alec. He hugged her back, suddenly and deeply grateful for her existence.

"So it went that well, huh?" Izzy asked once he'd finally let go. She hugged Jace and he whimpered dramatically into her shoulder.

Alec scrubbed at his face. "If we never, ever have to defend to half the Council that Jace and I are not, in fact, having sex, it will still be too soon."

Izzy and Max's eyes were both very wide when he dropped his hands.

Jace straightened back up and away from Izzy. "Yeah. Let's not have to do that again. Although it was hilarious how everyone was very sure you were somehow tarnishing my virtue. I mean, when it wasn't insulting and horrifying."  He pulled out his phone and started unbuttoning the collar of the tux he was still wearing. They'd both loosened their bow ties as soon as they'd left the ballroom, but they hadn't stopped to change before retrieving their bags and bolting for freedom.

"They weren't any help at all?" Izzy asked.

Alec shrugged. "No, but is that really a surprise? The Silent Brothers didn't know anything but they said they'd send word if something turned up. Which wasn't the whole story, not by a long shot, but that was all they would say. Then we got hit with the Inquisitor. Let me tell you, she is not happy with me right now."

"To be fair," Jace said, "I think she's mostly mad about Max being the prime suspect for all the lizards that were turned loose in the Consul's office."

Max cobbled together his emergency innocent expression, which meant he was definitely guilty. Alec sighed. He'd prefer Max hadn't damn near gotten caught but whatever, as long as there was no proof. Fortunately, considering Alec and the administration in Alicante had very different ideas about what constituted suitable discipline, everyone was still blaming Alec for letting Max 'run wild' rather than punishing Max directly. It was all going to go to hell soon, though, if he couldn't get Max out of the pressure keg and away from their scrutiny.

“Meanwhile," he continued, "Mom definitely knows we’re lying, but there wasn't enough privacy to tell her and we didn't want to do it without you there. I'm actually kind of surprised she's not standing behind me right now."

Jace shook his head. "She already knew something was up, this just confirmed it. I can think of three different excuses she could have used to follow us straight through, but she's under too much observation. It's a lot less suspicious to act unconcerned and bring word from the Consul in a couple of days."

Izzy grimaced.

"And _then_ Dad cornered me." Alec stopped. That was as far as he could go for reliving that particular conversation. “He's who strong armed us into attending the ball tonight — earlier today."

"You're welcome, by the way," Izzy said, "for making you keep a tux here. Very convenient when a runner shows up and says, surprise! You need formal clothes in Alicante."

"I don't live on the moon, Iz. I don't even live on the other side of the city. My wardrobe is in _Brooklyn."_

She glared at him.

"But yes, thank you for making sure the right clothes made their way to us. You know, Dad's gotten a lot more mercenary without mom to do his dirty work for him."

"Yeahhhhh," Max drew out. "Dad is to be _avoided."_

Alec felt uneasiness roll through Jace and frowned. Jace had been careful not to show it, but he'd been pretty damn unhappy with the way Alec's dad had started revealing more of his true colors. Alec hadn't been surprised, but then he'd already written off any hope he had for his father as soon as he learned of the affair. The last traces of Jace's regard for taking Jace in after his own father "died" had burned to ashes just hours ago and now he was looking at Max with a distinct undercurrent of worry. Alec spun comfort up the back of Jace's neck and into the base of his skull — _safe, protected, mine_ — and Jace glanced at him. On this side of the Alicante portal and with a hard edge of exhaustion, Jace's eyes were an open book. Thankfully, he let Alec brush away the worry for now. They could work on repairing it later.

Jace stretched his neck from side to side and rolled his shoulders. "The Inquisitor has already ‘suggested’ the option of breaking the bond. We refused. In a few days there will be an official 'recommendation’ of how we should proceed.”

Alec took out his phone and texted Magnus that he was back in New York. "I should at least look at my desk and see how much has piled up the last two days."

"Nope." Jace's phone pinged. He looked at it and started texting back a response. "Your office is off limits until tomorrow. It's a Ligh— uh, it's a family dinner night. Ish. Family-ish? Fuck it, Lightwood Family Dinner Night." Izzy and Max both cheered.

"We already ate dinner," Alec said, then felt like an idiot. It was never about the food.

Jace's mouth quirked up at Alec's mental exasperation with himself. "A dinner that neither of us actually ate because Robert was interrogating us."

Alec had thought Jace would want to hole up with Clary, or spend some quality time with a punching bag, but he was glad to be wrong. They were both still unsettled. The risks posed by being under the eye of Alicante and needing to be distinctly _Alec_ and _Jace_ had left the bond as restless as a tiger in a cage within the first few hours. It hadn't helped that neither of them had gotten much sleep the night before because of the time difference.

It had helped even less that the next night — last night — they'd stayed in Alicante. It was the usual procedure to minimize jet lag, and the last thing they wanted to do was let on how _un_ usual things had gotten. That night they'd held the bond in check through dinner and evening socializing, but wearily given up fighting it once they were alone. Exhausted and with their anchors out of reach, they'd shifted back and forth between states for hours. Part of the time they were a mixed up version of Alec-and-Jace, aware in those moments they needed rest and there was no immediate threat. The rest of the time they were their single parabatai consciousness and on high alert. Eventually they'd managed to sleep sitting back to back against the common wall of their respective bedrooms, but their shared nightmares hadn't been much more restful.

For a second long day of cross-examinations, followed by a formal ball, they'd been left running on stamina runes and hyper-vigilance.

"Dinner night would be great," Alec said, "but I'm just going to take a quick loo—" A portal spun open behind them. There were very few people who could open portals within the walls of the Institute but, even if he couldn't have guessed, the way bond flared and calmed told him who it was. Alec turned around. "I didn't mean for you to come get me."

"Oh, that's not why I'm here." Magnus kissed him hello. "Well, it is, but I'm also taking part in a conspiracy against you."

Alec realized Jace already had Alec's satchel in his hand and was holding it out for Magnus. Even with the bond finally dropping down to merely alert, Alec could sense Jace's smugness at having snuck it past him. "Wait, Magnus—" he started, but Magnus interrupted him with another kiss, which was, admittedly, a good distraction technique.

"Don't worry, Alexander, you'll see them again in an hour." Alec looked down and realized Magnus had a hold of the front of his shirt and his options were suddenly getting dragged through the portal or falling through it head first. Damnit.

 

* * *

 

The questionably named Lightwood Family Dinner Nights had, for years, consisted of just two Lightwoods, a Wayland, and usually illicit takeout, but they'd always involved ice cream. Later they'd sometimes had three Lightwoods, a Wayland, and, by then, slightly more easily obtained takeout, but they still traditionally involved ice cream. This was the first one in a long time though, so it would be the first with three Lightwoods, a Herondale(/Lightwood), a Fairchild(/Fray), a Bane, _and_ takeout they could actually have delivered to front door. Ice cream was, at this point, a required component.

It turned out Magnus was in charge of ordering, so Alec assumed there would be enough food to feed ten people, or at least a warlock and five Shadowhunters, one having a growth spurt. Alec had preemptively explained to him that it was very important the ice cream come in individual containers because Izzy got _mean_. By that point Magnus was basically shoving him in the shower, Alec still fully dressed, because, "You desperately need to wash the Alicante off you, darling. We've talked about this and how I'm terribly allergic."

Once Alec had showered — he'd managed to get his tux off _before_ the water came on, which was nice — and changed into sleep clothes, he found Magnus waiting in the kitchen with a drink for him. Alec took the drink and followed Magnus out to the lounge, feeling like he'd taken off invisible armor and washed away the stress of the last two days. Just being ensconced in the comfort of the loft was a relief all its own. Alicante might be the celebrated city of glass, but Alec's home had Magnus' deft touch with light and color and his rooms in Alicante had felt cold in comparison.

While Alec had been in the shower, Magnus had redecorated for dinner and Alec smiled at the new seating in the lounge. It consisted of floor cushions and plenty of extra pillows, which was clearly a nod to the stories he'd told Magnus about he and Jace and Izzy's first 'family dinner night'. They'd based it on their vague concepts of sleepovers and thought as many pillows as possible were a critical component. Their efforts to raid empty rooms for extra pillows had been almost as harrowing as sneaking in the food, but they'd been pretty proud of the virtual pillow fort they'd constructed on Alec's bedroom floor.

Magnus dropped gracefully onto one of the cushions, curling up cross-legged. "So I gathered from Jace's rather desperate text as soon as you were back on New York soil that today didn't go any better than yesterday?"

Alec sighed and lowered himself down onto the cushion next to Magnus. The night before, in a fit of frustration, Alec had sent Magnus a three page long fire letter that had mostly been a rant about the Council's apparent obsession with his sex life. In truth it had been from both Alec and Jace, their lines too hard to pick apart, but he didn't know how obvious that had been to Magnus.

"It was ridiculous. We were basically interrogated three separate times today alone by people convinced Jace and I are hiding an affair with each other. Then my dad— you know what, I don't even want to talk about it. It was all terrible and it didn't matter what I said, or what Jace said, or how many times I pointed out I'm in a relationship with you, and only you, they just refused to hear it." He put his drink down on the shallow wooden platform serving as a center table and stretched out to lay his head in Magnus' lap.

"How did you sleep?" Magnus asked, fingers sifting into Alec's hair.

Alec rubbed at his eyes, feeling all too well the exhaustion that was starting to set in. "As well as you probably think. The good thing was that our bedrooms were at least next to each other. Even at that, with neither of you there, having a wall between us made our skin crawl." He rested his hands on his stomach and stared up at the thousand crystals shards of the chandelier overhead. Being in Idris had brought up some very specific memories from the more ragged parts of Jace's brain and, with the nightmares rising, he hadn't been able to fight them. It was the most distinct they'd ever been with the bond in full effect: Alec had turned one dreamscape after another into a killing field as fathers died repeatedly by his sword and at arrow point. When no weapon would come to hand, he'd used his fists.

"Remind me to thank Clary again for killing Valentine-slash-Michael-fucking-Wayland," he said.

Magnus hummed thoughtfully. "We should probably just set up an annual gift basket delivery. Some combination of flowers, wine, and chocolate."

"I'm not saying she would hate that, but this is Clary."

"True. Art supplies it is. Something she can't pick up at the local art store." He tipped his head from side to side, his expression thoughtful. "I'll have to think about it."

The door to the loft opened and Clary and Izzy’s laughter floated in from the entryway. There was a pause as everyone removed their shoes, then Max bolted into the lounge ahead of Clary and Izzy. Jace sauntered into view last, loose hipped and cocky again with the overwhelming arrogance and charm that was his own Alicante armor. Experience said it would take him a day or two before he settled entirely back to his New York self. Alec smiled. Not that there wouldn't be plenty of arrogance left.

Alec rolled his head to the side and watched as Jace dropped onto a cushion with an insouciant grace rather than his usual uncaring flop. It was beautiful and unnerving, the kind of motion that had burned itself into Alec's brain as a warning sign of danger long before they'd formally become parabatai. Alec sent out a little spark through the bond — _safe, home._ Between the two of them, the bond itself was coiled up sweet and calm, satisfied at having both of them safe behind wards and anchors in arms reach.

Jace looked up, his eyes flaring a faint gold. His response was a tired and slightly raw acknowledgment, then he smirked and said, "The only good thing about that trip was that I have no shame because Alec was embarrassed enough for both of us."

Alec was fading back into his own edges and he wasn't sure if the self-deprecation was in Jace's voice or just in the outlines of this thoughts. Regardless, Magnus was running his fingers through Alec's hair and Alec couldn't be bothered to think of a comeback. It was a lie as a general statement but true enough as applied to the waking hours of the last couple of days: Jace had not been ashamed. What Jace had been was _angry_. White hot anger at every carefully phrased, condescending insinuation directed at Alec and often, either blatantly or by extension, at Magnus.

It seemed everyone in Alicante already knew why they were there, and most were of the opinion it was Alec's fault somehow. Even some of the ones who didn't assign any blame still thought he needed fixing — and were prepared to sacrifice themselves on a wedding altar in order to bring him back into the fold.

Jace had hardly left his side the entire time, picking up the slack the moment Alec faltered, diverting attention and shutting down conversations. It had all been a reminder of how well Jace lied to other people about what was going on in his head. Or maybe just how readily they fell for it; Alec couldn't remember it ever working as well on him as it had on everyone they'd talked to. They'd all praised and petted Jace, accepting his flattery as their due. Meanwhile, the buried rage hiding in Jace's sweet, swift words had cut through Alec's layers of anger and old, complicated shame, leaving something far brighter behind.

Magnus slid out from under Alec's head to stand up. "Come along, duckling, you can help me carry the drinks."

As Max scrambled after Magnus, Alec sat up reluctantly. A few minutes later, Max came back out with a crowded tray and Magnus following behind with a bag of crunchy, mass produced pretzels. They were Max's favorite mundane food, especially when he was freshly back from yet another trip to Idris. Alec was half sure Magnus had earned Max's undying loyalty just by keeping a bag in the kitchen. Especially now, when it seemed like Max was either eating or starving and never somewhere in between.

"You know we're having an actual meal soon, right?" Clary asked, sounding amused when he re-took his seat and opened the bag immediately.

Max gave her a confused look. "Yes?"

Jace reached over and stole some of Max's pretzels. "I was very close to telling the Inquisitor that if anyone had done any corrupting out of the two of us, it was most definitely me."

Resting an elbow on one knee, Alec propped his chin up on one hand. "It was a good effort, but if all the naked women I've seen in my life didn't turn me straight then nothing will."

"Look, they were mostly half-naked."

" _Half-_ naked." Izzy shook her head with an expression of mock disappointment as she opened the bottle Magnus had handed her.

"Do you really want to start this competition?" Jace asked her.

"I am _fifteen._ "

They all looked over to realize Clary had her hands over Max's ears. "He's _fifteen_ ," she hissed. "That's the worst age for this conversation. It's worse than fourteen. I _remember_ being fifteen!"

"Well, it wasn't very long ago," Alec said, because the opening was right there.

Max squirmed free and retreated to safety on the other side of the table between Izzy and Magnus.

Magnus leaned back on one hand and sipped at his drink. "You are obviously unfamiliar with boarding schools, biscuit. Shadowhunter training is pretty dispersed these days but it's still at least half a glorified boarding school. Not to mention the nephilim regard these things a bit differently than mundanes. He's been blooded in battle, so he's effectively of age."

"I am _twenty!"_ Clary said to Alec and he grinned at how much she sounded like Max. Then she looked at Magnus with an outraged expression. "And _you_ were covering his eyes just a few months ago!"

"Oh, I didn't say he was old enough to be witnessing a sex magic ritual."

Alec looked over at Magnus. _"What"_

Jace rolled his eyes. "We were _tracking_ , Magnus. That's hardly sex magic."

"Wait," Izzy said, "sex magic is actually a thing?"

Magnus hummed and sipped at his drink. "Yes and no. Fertility rites are a thing, so to speak, but that's tradition rather than magic, regardless of what some people might tell you. Actual sex magic isn't so much an individual category as a… technique. Sex can be used as a kind of shortcut in certain, very specific situations. Mind you, you can achieve the same results without it. Better results for that matter, since it tends to create highly unstable situations. Doing it the regular way just takes longer. Sometimes a lot longer."

Unstable— Alec carefully sat his drink on the table. "Situations like, say, in the case of soul bonds?"

Magnus looked at him, eyes widening. "That's what they're afraid of."

" _That's_ why romantic relationships between parabatai are forbidden," Clary said.

Izzy sat straight up. "It’s a shortcut! That's what's happening but it's because of _the angel blood._ It's drastically accelerated the extended bonding process."

Jace rubbed at his face with both hands and then just left them there. "Well fuck."

Max crunching on pretzels was very loud in the ensuing silence.

"But could that be why you and I can pull them back?" Clary asked Magnus, then looked over at Izzy. “Like, as a separate thing?”

Magnus still looked stunned. "I don't know, biscuit. I thought they were doing something and reaching out, not that we were acting upon them, but it could be both. It's possible we've formed little side bonds that are pulling them back. If they're accidental sex magic, the fact that they're weak and unstable would follow the logic. But how—" He broke off, his face twisting up in confusion.

There was a moment more of silence, then Izzy laughed. “Wow, that was some demon lull last year, huh?”

Clary collapsed back onto the pillows behind her. “Oh my _god.”_

Magnus' eyes slid closed and he groaned.

Alec could feel a headache forming. With Magnus and Clary sitting right there, it probably wasn't from Jace, but Jace still had his face covered and didn't look like he was faring a lot better. "Magnus, you might need to break that cheap whiskey back out."

"Oh, Alexander, no." Magnus snapped out of his shock to place a concerned hand on Alec's arm. "That's just your degenerate parabatai's method of drinking himself blind. Please don't feel the need to stoop to that level."

"Okay, first of all, fuck you," Jace said, finally dropping his hands back down. "Second, your alcohol makes me feel like I'm committing a mortal sin unless I savor every sip. And third, Alec literally carried you home from The Hunter's Moon two months ago."

Izzy squinted at Jace. "Are you sure you want to throw those particular stones? Because I won that contest and Clary and I were the ones who carried _you_ home."

Clary grimaced but didn't move from where she was still laying back and staring at the ceiling. "In heels. And neither of us were sober, so it wasn't easy."

"I maintain Maia was watering the drinks in your favor," Jace grumbled.

Izzy scoffed. "Please, like that's the first time I've out drank you."

"Yeah, _me,_ but Magnus has some kind of unfair warlock advantage."

Magnus gasped and clutched his hands to his chest. "You take that back! I've _earned_ that alcohol tolerance!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real questions: Where did Max get all those lizards? Who was on lizard removal duty? Is anyone else picturing them being set free and Alicante, the celebrated City of Glass, being home to a brightly colored, naturalized population of lizards in a couple years? (The insect eating ends up being pretty popular and everyone just has a collection of overwintering lizards around their fireplaces through the cold months.)


	8. The Consul's Recommendation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maryse arrives at the Institute with _questions_. She discharges her official duty, makes some personal observations, and even gets some answers.

Maryse stood in front of her two eldest with her arms crossed. Forewarned by a fire letter, they'd been waiting for her in the office; the moment she'd walked in, they'd both dropped straight into parade rest. She'd expected grim faces, but not so much as hello meant the situation was even more dire than she'd guessed. At that point she'd stopped and taken the time to let her hair down from the myriad of pins required to keep up its shorter length. They always seemed to be poking and pulling one way or another and, with it down, she'd at least be slightly more comfortable for the utter catastrophe she was about to uncover. Now she was optimistically giving them a few minutes to crack and tell her everything. She stood straight, all her weight pressing down on her aching feet; the fresh stamina rune she'd applied before she'd walked through the portal was helping, but the exhaustion was chronic at this point.

That something had changed with the bond had been obvious ever since Alec's kidnapping, but she'd had few chances to ferret out the details and they certainly hadn't been volunteering. Then, just as she’d been ready to confront them about it, they’d suddenly shown up in Alicante to consult with the Silent Brothers on the subject. The story they'd spun for everyone had been half the truth at best but, fortunately, no one in Alicante knew Alec or Jace as well as Maryse did. Up to and including her ex-husband, but he’d perfected the art of not actually seeing Alec years ago.

She finally broke the silence with the message she'd come bearing. “The Consul is officially recommending that you dissolve the parabatai bond.”

Everyone in the room knew it was only a matter of time before it became an outright order and Alec’s expression immediately shifted from carefully blank to hard and stubborn. “It’s interesting how we weren’t summoned to Alicante for that judgment.”

Jace shook his head. “They don’t want us there.”

“And they don’t even know the half of it, do they?” Maryse asked.

They were both silent until Alec was the one that caved. For given values of caved. “We will not be dissolving the bond. The Consul's recommendation is rejected.”

It was a statement Maryse had fully expected. She looked at Jace and lifted an eyebrow. Jace glanced over at her, then quickly averted his eyes, and Maryse realized she'd made a misstep.

The first thing everyone said of Jace in Alicante was how charming he was, and it was true insofar as he wanted it to be. It was also an illusion like still waters over a raging current. When he'd first been given over to her care, she'd quickly realized how thin the cocky, confident veneer was over the cracks underneath, like shiny wrapping paper over a broken toy. At the time it had been surprising; after much later revelations, it was surprising he hadn't been worse.

For all his gifts, Jace's weak spots ran deep and she sometimes forgot that she had control of one of them. While he had more than held his own against all comers in the shark infested social waters of Alicante just a few days earlier, here, in the safety of the New York Institute, he flinched from her at a silent query. Alec would meet her toe to toe, but with Jace she had to tread more carefully. She rocked back on her heels to give him more room to breathe.

Still staring over her left shoulder, Jace finally said, "Seconded."

Next to Jace, Alec held ground, his expression utterly intractable. Alec's stubbornness was, as always, the best and worst of him at once. The Consul had not been happy about the specific request for him to mediate the Denver contract and, in the days since, Maryse had come to the inevitable conclusion that Alicante would never truly be pleased with Alec. They did praise him on occasion, and dangled carrots in front of his nose hoping to better control him, but he was a good man with a steel backbone and it often put him at odds with the old guard clinging tenaciously to power.

She sighed, tired of the game they were playing. “Are you at least going to tell _me_ how bad it is? What you’re not telling the Inquisitor?”

Alec and Jace glanced at each other. She wondered if they realized she could see a glimmer of gold in both their eyes. Granted, it was downright subtle compared to how they'd occasionally blazed with light in Alicante; the two of them had been as much a curiosity for that as anything else. Few outside of New York had seen Jace's eyes turn gold, which was startling enough, but none had seen Alec's do the same. Multiplied between them, the effect was otherworldly.

It was Jace, finally, who told her, “The bond is stronger even than it was. It used to be we had to consciously raise it, now we have to concentrate to keep it at bay. Clary and Magnus can act as temporary anchors when they’re either near or actually touching us. In that case, we don’t even have to think about it, we can pull back and it’s fine.”

Maryse stared at them for a long moment. “And you _didn’t_ think this was something you should share with me? However much you would like it to not be the case, dissolving the bond is the only safe solution!”

Alec and Jace’s irises both turned bright gold even as they simultaneously answered, “No.”

By the _angel_ , her children could be stubborn fools. “What happens when you're lost in it completely? What happens to Alec and Jace? These are your lives—" She had to stop and swallow down the sudden fear choking her.

It was Alec who answered. “Even if we were willing, and we’re not, cutting the runes isn’t going to break the bond. We’re past that option.”

 _Past_ that— Maryse’s mind went entirely blank for a moment. Nothing about Alec yielded to her incredulous stare, but that wasn't surprising: questioning the parabatai bond had been a guaranteed way to make Alec dig in and hold his ground as long as the two of them had worn the runes.

“We think we know why it’s happening," Jace said, his tone placating. "We just need to stop it from accelerating. Izzy and Magnus are on it.”

“Swear to me—” She cut herself off, not sure how to finish the statement. Swear to me I won’t lose both of you? Swear to me you didn’t already slip away when I wasn’t looking?

Alec, his voice sharp, said, “We will tell you—"  He paused, then continued with a softer tone, "We'll tell you if it gets worse." He was trying not to blame her for being the bearer of bad news at any rate. She suspected he hadn't added _but you’ll know regardless_. They were playing with fire. They had been.

Maryse turned away from them, walking to the far end of the room before turning and looking back. They hadn’t moved, both still in parade rest and watching her. They'd been her perfect light and dark for so long: Jace’s quicksilver smiles to Alec’s forbidding glares. Everyone saw Jace's golden shine first, but no one noticed how often Jace deferred to Alec. _Alec_ hadn't even noticed for a long time, but he'd spent a lot of years in his own shadow. It hadn't been until Magnus that Alec had finally straightened out his spine and lived up to the promise she'd always seen in him. To what she'd been trying to hammer him into. These days he could be as hard and bright as adamas — softer, too, and with an unstinting kindness she hadn't expected. She'd always thought his gentleness a private thing, reserved for Izzy, Jace, and Max. Now he could fill a room with authority or mercy or joy, or even all three at once.

For what it was worth, they were, for now, still themselves, but she was in danger of losing them. There was no physical enemy here for her to fight, but information was its own battleground.

“Call your sister. I want to know what she’s managed to determine so far.”

They hesitated and Maryse had to fight the urge to roll her eyes — her children were all terrible influences — but, fine, she would make her case. “I have no interest in either forcing or tricking the two of you into actions you’ve already stated you were against, let alone handing the keys to your destruction over to the Inquisitor.” Stating it so plainly didn’t sit well in her stomach, but she’d committed far greater treason for far less worthy motives.

It made Jace nervous as well. His chin dropped into a disarming head tilt and his mouth bloomed into a sweet smile. “We just—”

Alec cut off the deflection. “You may as well come in.”

The door to the office swung open to reveal both Isabelle and Clary. They had slightly guilty expressions, which was reasonable given the eavesdropping rune glowing on the door.

Maryse frowned. “Don’t the wards prevent that?”

“Yes,” Alec said with a sigh, “but Clary can circumvent them. She and Magnus are in this weird competition trying to one up each other.”

Clary rolled her eyes. “He’s experimenting, Alec. He’s trying to build a more solid set of wards.”

“The shrieks of frustration are very loud, Clary.”

She could circumvent the _wards?_ Wards set by _Magnus Bane?_ How did it keep getting worse? How much wild power was ricocheting off the insides of these walls?

With a self-satisfied smile, Clary shrugged and walked over to lean back against the desk next to Jace. Maryse saw the set of Jace's shoulders ease slightly, his body falling back on his heels. Bracketed by an immovable object on one side and an unstoppable force on the other, Jace settled into himself like he'd found safe harbor.

The traces of gold faded from both his and Alec's eyes.

She looked at Isabelle, who was wearing a grim expression. At least someone was on the same page. “Tell me everything. I’ll return to Alicante tomorrow and see what I can turn up without raising any red flags.”

Isabelle studied her for a moment. “Now that they know what’s going on, they’ll be watching you even closer.”

“Of course they will, but I’m hardly an amateur, Isabelle.”

Isabelle smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile, but then Isabelle wasn’t always nice. Maryse returned the smile in kind.


	9. Clary Has A Vision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maryse and Magnus have a conversation, the furniture survives another day, and Ithuriel dead drops information.

Magnus texted Alec to ask if he was coming home soon since Leela and Nico, a couple of oak nymphs, had dropped by to visit him. The two of them had taken a particular shine to Alec, which was at least half because he let them perch on his shoulders at parties. Tonight they'd trekked all the way over from Manhattan with the express purpose of getting Alec's opinion on a contract they'd drawn up.

Leela, shyly waving a handwritten paper almost as big as she was, had explained the contract codified an agreement they'd made with a neighboring brownie over a "huge" patch of land. Given the species involved and the fact they were New York City dwellers, he was fairly sure "huge" equated out to about five foot square at most. He'd pointed out there were fully licensed lawyers in the Downworld that handled this sort of thing, but they'd just stared at him. Then he'd offered to take a look at it himself (he was the _High Warlock of Brooklyn,_ he had experience dealing with contracts for the love of—) but they'd both leaned back a full two inches and Leela had pulled the paper closer to her chest. At that point, Magnus had sighed, pulled out his phone, and offered them cups of compost tea while they waited.

Alec’s return text read **_on my way_** _,_ and then **_bringing company._ ** A short while later, Magnus heard the door and stepped into the foyer. He wasn’t surprised to find Alec being followed in by Jace, Clary, Izzy, and Max. Maryse, however, was an unexpected addition.

Alec gave him a quick hello kiss, then went to talk to Leela and Nico. Max immediately scampered off to the kitchen. Jace, Clary, and Izzy took themselves into the lounge while yelling their drink orders in Max's direction.

“Maryse,” Magnus greeted as he closed the door behind her.

"Magnus," she responded absently. She walked towards the lounge, her eyes following her children and Clary as they distributed themselves around the space with familiarity. She looked tired, but that was common enough these days whenever she had a rare trip home. Alec and Luke shared strong opinions on both the tiredness and the infrequency of her possible visits, meaning Magnus had heard about both things extensively. The night of the contract negotiations with Ívarr was the first Magnus had actually seen her since Alec's kidnapping, and she had left to report back to Alicante even before Ívarr had departed. This time she'd at least been in New York long enough to take her hair down, but she was still carrying herself with a stiff and quiet reserve that was better suited to her official position than stopping by for socializing.

Her current role — Consul's assistant — was ostensibly a boon for a former circle member, but it apparently had nothing to do with her terrifying competence. According to Alec, it was about keeping her under close watch and separated from Luke: The Council didn't like two former, high ranking circle members joining forces, particularly when one was Valentine's former parabatai and right hand man. They liked even less that Luke was a werewolf these days since the Accords limited the control they had over him. Whether it was the sheer amount of work or the politics in play, the weight on Maryse's shoulders kept growing heavier. He gave her a moment of quiet to get her bearings. She looked like she needed it.

There was the slam of a cabinet door and, a moment later, Max trotted back by with an armful of drinks and his bag of pretzels. Alec had already disappeared to Magnus' workroom with Leela and Nico for their conversation and Jace and Clary had claimed one of the two chairs. Jace sat still and silent under Clary's chatter with Izzy, his expression utterly impassive; something had him feeling defensive. Clary was relaxed enough though, so it was probably slow burn drama rather than anything Magnus needed to strengthen his wards for immediately.

Max distributed drinks, then left the couch open and squeezed into the other chair with Izzy. He was rapidly getting too big to climb all over her — comfortably, anyway. As it was, the chair was slightly over sized but he was still under her arm and half in her lap. Izzy was small enough that it worked for now, but Magnus made a mental note to add more couches in his next redecorating effort. Preferably before Max's latest growth spurt really kicked in.

Magnus finally broached the bubble of silence he had found himself in. “What brings you out on this lovely evening?”

Maryse blinked as if coming out of a stupor and turned to him. "My children have confessed their latest sins of omission. Any insight you have into the situation would be appreciated."

Ah, that would explain her apparent reverie. Processing that kind of information took some effort, as Magnus could attest. It also explained Jace's tension. He took even a mild reprimand from Maryse like the bitterest pill although, as far as Magnus could tell, it had never stopped him from running riot with Izzy and Alec in years past.

"Would you like some wine?" Magnus asked. He lead the way without waiting for an answer. In the relative privacy of the kitchen, he pulled out four wine glasses and poured Maryse a glass from the bottle he'd opened as soon as soon as Alec's text had arrived.

She took the glass he handed her but made no move to taste it. Instead she looked up and met his eyes. "Magnus, I want to apologize for my behavior during—When Alec was missing."

If someone had told Magnus two years ago that Alec had learned how to sincerely and straightforwardly apologize from Maryse Lightwood of all people, he would have laughed. This wasn't, however, the first occasion they'd had to admit they'd fallen back on old habits under stressful conditions.

"Mmm, I think I owe you the same," he said and poured his own wine. "But I also think we can both be forgiven considering the circumstances at the time." He held up his glass in silent offer and she clinked her own against it with a wry half-smile.

He did appreciate that Maryse could still meet him head to head when they were both sharp edged for reasons that ranged from uncomfortable to angry and terrified. They'd both had their claws out that night, little caring if they drew blood. As exchanges went, though, it paled in comparison to the life and death disagreements of the past. This was nothing an apology didn't set right.

"Magnus—" She broke off whatever she'd been about to say and instead swirled her glass and scented the aroma. She took a perfunctory sip, then carefully sat her glass down on the marble surface and looked at him. "The Council won't take this news well."

"The immortality?"

She nodded. "That and— Well, they're already taking the watered down version badly and I have a vested interest in my children emerging from this intact."

That Magnus had been expecting. "Unfortunately, I don't have insights beyond what Alec, Jace, and Izzy already know, let alone any that might be helpful in terms of the Council. Alicante hasn't traditionally been forthcoming with the Downworld about the details of parabatai bonds."

Maryse toyed with the stem of her wineglass for a moment. Then, far quieter than Magnus was accustomed to her speaking, she said, "Please understand I mean no ill intent, but you are the son and heir of a general and they are a pre-eminent weapon of the opposition. Does Edom truly not know anything?"

Magnus' breath caught for a moment somewhere in the vicinity of his solar plexus. It was a fair question, for all that it dealt in things Magnus would sometimes prefer to forget. "Not that was ever shared with me," he answered once he had his air back.

She sighed and took a sip of her wine. From the lounge there came an outraged shriek that was almost certainly from Izzy and then the sound of Max's laughter. It was followed by a loud crash that made both Magnus and Maryse wince. The subsequent thumps Magnus had the experience to identify as an impromptu wrestling match.

Oh well, furniture damage by errant nephilim was becoming one of Magnus' specialties. The older ones usually managed to avoid it, but Max was like a half-grown personification of chaos some days. Considering the unending list of duties Maryse was reportedly assigned, it was fortunate he was of an age to be apprenticed to an older Shadowhunter — his "commanding officer" as the term went. In Max's case, his assigned commanding officer was, of course, Alec, although Magnus understood Maryse served in the role if Alec were somehow unavailable.

"Maryse, you look completely exhausted. The Consul is clearly running you ragged and, the last I checked, Shadowhunters still had free will."

"Mmm, to an extent. I am still a soldier and the Council has full authority to choose where and how I serve the Clave. Which includes being assigned to Alicante regardless of my position. I was given the option of this assignment, but it was really more of a _suggestion."_

Magnus knew full well about Shadowhunter _suggestions._ Magnus had been the recipient of _suggestions_ himself in the past. Some of them from Maryse, rather ironically.

"Granted, there is an alternative," she continued. "A rarely used alternative that isn't common knowledge, but it does exist on the books. I could step down and take reserve status. The Council could still call me back in a state of declared war and I couldn't serve in any official role, but I wouldn't be barred from Alicante or stripped of my runes either. "

"Then why not do so? Step down and stay in New York."

She smiled. "You're as bad as Alec."

"It's an unfortunate side effect of living with him," Magnus said as he summoned a gentle stimulant potion he had tucked away. He nudged the vial across the counter top to her. "Dark circles under the eyes of a nephilim is a terrible sign and I shudder to think how often you've been using your stamina rune. This will replace one of those uses and at least change up some of the stress you're putting on yourself."

"Those dark circles are well camouflaged, thank you. Any extra effects I should know about? Am I going to turn green three hours after I take this?" she asked, lifting one eyebrow.

Out in the lounge, Clary was shouting encouragement at both Izzy and Max because she was a terrible enabler. Thankfully the new training room one floor down was nearly finished. The next time this happened they were getting banished downstairs until they had it out of their systems.

"No, nothing that exciting," Magnus answered. "From what I've observed, it probably won't work quite as smoothly as a stamina rune. However it should be fairly similar in strength and duration."

She nodded and took the vial, sliding it into a hidden pocket. "No lecture on getting more sleep?"

Magnus wasn't in the business of giving lectures to anyone except under duress. "If you haven't already been on the receiving end of speeches from Izzy and Alec both, I will be very surprised. I won't repeat the obvious. Still, my earlier question stands: Why are you doing it?"

"The futile pursuit of redemption? The relative prestige of the position?" When Magnus lifted an eyebrow at her, she smiled faintly. "Max, actually, is the remaining reason. Alec keeps Max in New York as much as he can but, as things are, he's still spending a good deal of time in Alicante. It's enough that he benefits from an advocate on that side of the portal. If I'm not there, then it defaults to Robert, and quite honestly, that's… not an ideal situation. So I stay. By maintaining a higher ranked official role, Max's safety within the city is better ensured."

"You know, their Downworlder bias aside, I'm under the impression Alicante is a relatively civilized city. Most Shadowhunters I've known spoke of it reverently."

The intermittent loud thumps from the lounge finally cut off and Max yelled, "I yield! I yield!"

Maryse's whole expression brightened suddenly. "I've been all around the world, Magnus, but Alicante is still the most beautiful city I've ever seen. It has in it some of the kindest, most gracious people I've ever known." Then her momentary joy faded back and she just looked tired again. "But it also has dangerous people that hold a great deal of power and will do near anything to see that they keep it." She stopped and took a sip of her wine. "There is always someone watching, and whether that person is friend or foe or somewhere in-between can be hard to determine until the consequences come back on you. It used to be the name Lightwood was, if not a guarantee of safe passage, at least an advantage. It opened doors and forgave transgressions. But most of that capital has been burned — and yes, I continue to be well aware of my role in that coming to pass."

"I dare say you had some help," Magnus murmured.

"I did," she acknowledged, "but there were plenty of sins to go around. The thing is, Max is aware of the tensions, but he also openly defies them with not a whit of care for himself. Angel help anyone who suggests a Herondale is too good to be his de facto brother or disputes Alec being entirely perfect. Max can be cunning, but if his temper's up, then everyone in earshot is going to know about it."

That was… not surprising. "Max's temper burns much slower than Alec's, though, or even Izzy's."

"It does, but the political and social climate in Alicante is in a certain amount of upheaval at the moment. While I think good things will eventually prevail, the growing pains are difficult. Of late, it seems like the topics at hand amongst Max's peers are all designed to shred his tolerance."

"Are they? Specifically stoking his temper, I mean."

She shook her head. "Not deliberately I don't think. Or, at least, I don't think the talk is present to a significantly greater degree than what's already being discussed and argued amongst the older generations. Thankfully, my efforts and Max's innate charm have so far saved him from complete pariah status."

"You know, Max can also be kind and clever. Surely that must have earned him some loyalty somewhere."

"In Alicante, kindness and cleverness have very little traction if they're not accompanied by charm and cunning."

Magnus had certainly been in the thick of other societies that operated in much the same cutthroat way, both of the Downworld and mundanes. As common as it was, he did understand why Alec was continually irritable about Max and Maryse being caught up in it.

Magnus heard Leela laugh and a moment later she and Nico threaded through the kitchen. They both scampered up and across the counter to kiss Magnus on the cheek, then back down to show themselves out.

Alec walked in behind them and poured his own glass of wine. "I heard a crash. Anything broken?"

"I don't know yet," Magnus said, picking up the spare glass and bottle. "Let's go find out."

In the lounge there was, so far as Magnus could tell, very little out of place and nothing suspiciously missing. Clary was perched cross-legged on Jace's thighs while Max and Izzy were back in their chair, both looking flushed with a bit of exertion and as if they were deeply unconcerned with anyone entering the room. It seemed likely he was going to discover a wobble in something in the next few days. Oh well, at least the coffee table had survived this time; you could only repair things with magic so often before they started to go a little odd. Plus, Clary's phone was out on her lap, so at least he'd likely have the entertainment of photo evidence later.

She and Jace were both drinking beer, which they had a stated preference for over wine — when it was "good" beer, in Clary's case, which Magnus kept on hand these days — but the bottle Magnus had opened was one Izzy would like. Magnus held up the empty glass and she smiled and nodded. "Yes, please."

Encumbered as he was, Magnus' attempt to relocate the beer Izzy had been drinking to the kitchen wasn't quite on target, but he was mostly sure it was upright on the kitchen floor, so no harm. He handed her the empty glass and added wine, then sat the bottle on the coffee table. "Okay, what don't I know?" he asked the room at large.

Maryse settled on the couch as Jace answered, "The Consul has strongly suggested the parabatai bond be broken. Eventually it will become an order, but we don't know how long until that happens."

"Shocking. Anything else?"

"Clary can still get around your wards," Alec said.

Oh, for fuck's sake. Magnus reminded himself that now would be a terrible time for the hissy fit he desperately wanted to throw. He'd thought for certain this set would keep her out. He turned towards her saying, "Biscuit—!" but then stopped abruptly. She was still sitting upright, but her face had gone slack and her eyes were pure white.

At his sudden silence, everyone turned and looked at Clary — or, in Jace's case, bent over sideways so he could see around her shoulder.

"Alec?" Jace asked. "Could you, uh—"

Alec all but dropped his glass on the coffee table on the way over to the chair where he lifted Clary up in his arms so Jace could slide out from underneath her. They settled her back into the seat by herself, then crouched down on either side and waited. It was another long minute of total silence as everyone stared while Clary, who wasn't so much as breathing, remained completely still.

Jace shifted restlessly on the balls of his feet. "They don't usually go on this—"

Abruptly, Clary's eyes cleared and she choked on a hard, desperate inhale before croaking out "Holy _shit"_ and slumping sideways against Alec's supporting arm. She grabbed at Alec's shirt front with one hand, looked up at him, and said, "No take backs. It's a one way street."

Jace had risen to his feet and reached for her as soon as she slumped over, but he stopped at those words. "You mean Alec?" he asked. "And the angel blood effects?"

She nodded and Jace dropped back to a crouch like his knees had suddenly weakened on him. Alec settled Clary back into the chair and then stood himself, one hand scrubbing at his hair as he turned and walked around the coffee table to Magnus. Clary fell back, catching her breath, and Jace dropped his forehead down to her thigh.

Magnus couldn't look away from Clary. He felt Alec's hand slide into his own, which was good since Magnus desperately needed something to hold onto.

"Including immortality?" Maryse asked quietly as if reading Magnus' mind. But that was what they were all wondering, wasn't it?

Clary nodded. "Ye—" She cleared her throat. "Yeah." Then she rolled her head around to look straight at Magnus. "We're not getting any older. Not physically."

Wine splashed over the side of Magnus' glass and onto his hand when he sat down hard on the floor, dragging Alec with him in the process. Maryse leaned forward, took the glass from him, and sat it on the table. She was ostensibly calm, but Magnus could see her hand was trembling. He spent several seconds disassociating from the news and wondering instead which was more comforting: her outward lack of panic or the fact that she wasn't completely unaffected.

"That wasn't even the _main_ thing," Clary said in a strained voice. "It was about stabilizing the bond."

Oh, good. That was important.

"There was a ceremony and a rune. I don't think— I think it's new, but it looked familiar."

"Can you describe the ceremony?" Izzy asked.

Clary curled one hand into a fist and wound the other through Jace's hair where he was still hiding his face against her leg. "It's a variation on the parabatai ceremony. He showed me that first. Their ceremony, specifically. They were—" She laughed. "Oh, god, it wasn't even all that long ago and they looked _so_ _young_."

Jace huffed out his own laugh against her leg, but didn't look up.

"They were like babies," Izzy agreed, nodding, then prodded for more. "There was another ceremony? Now?"

Clary nodded. "Yeah, only it was bigger. Magnus and I were in the circle with them, and there were witnesses. Like, formal witnesses, in their own circles. They were just shadows, but two were represented by a collection of the Downworld symbols and two by an enkeli rune. Alec and Jace repeated their parabatai oath, then Jace and I exchanged the new runes with each other while Alec and Magnus did the same."

Exchanged— Magnus was very glad he was already sitting down. As it was, his head went a little floaty for a few moments.

"I can tell you why the rune looks familiar if you draw it," Max offered.

Clary nodded and sat up in order to slide out of the chair and kneel down at the coffee table. Magnus absently summoned a piece of parchment, a brush, and some ink to the spot in front of her. Jace, Max, and Izzy all moved to hover a careful arm's length away on either side while Clary carefully wet the brush. Under the table, Alec's hand tightened on Magnus'.

She drafted the rune with careful motions. Then, the moment she was done, she shoved the parchment towards Max, sat the brush in its holder, and held her head in her hands. "My brain still feels weird," she mumbled from behind the hair spilling through her pale fingers and across the surface of the table.

Max frowned over the rune, tilting his head and spinning the paper so that it was at a different angle.

"It does look familiar," Izzy agreed just as Max's face lit up.

"That's because it's a variation on a binding rune. See this stroke?" He ran his finger along the sleek curve of one line, then another. "And this one. Plus the dots are the same."

Clary made a startled sound, then reached over and retrieved the brush before tugging the parchment back. She inked the word _Alliance_ under the rune, put the brush back down, and lay back on the rug. "Uggggh, okay, that's the last of it."

"Alliance?" Maryse asked, her voice sharp. "Not anchor?"

Still flat on the floor, Clary shook her head. "No, it's definitely Alliance."

Izzy and her mother exchanged a look. "An alliance is for mutual benefit," Izzy said. "The power goes both ways."

"Wait," Alec's voice was steady but his grip was tight on Magnus' hand, "if it's inside the parabatai circle… these are permanent runes, aren't they?"

"Of course they're permanent, Alec!" Izzy snapped. Then she closed her eyes briefly before saying far more gently, "It wouldn't make much sense otherwise."

They weren't just permanent, they were immortal. As was Alec. Apparently. Magnus closed his own eyes and took a slow, careful breath.

What happened if (when) one of them was killed? What would happen when you mixed together demon and angel powers for more than just a temporary binding? What if one of you grew tired of the other? (He thought of Camile and flinched.)

Alec's free hand settled on top of their joined hands, thumb rubbing soothingly at the back of Magnus' hand.

Magnus was acutely aware of how long the passage of time could be, and this would bind together four whole people in one fashion or another for the length of—  and Alec—

Magnus turned his head away and set his forehead down against Alec's shoulder. He had so far staved off hyperventilating but he didn't know if his heart was racing or had stopped beating all together. The inside of his brain felt both hollow and like his thoughts were trying to rise through quicksand. He felt like he was falling for all that he was already on the floor.

Desperate to stabilize his fraying control, Magnus consciously slowed his breathing and went looking for the proto-bond he was sharing with Alec. He found it as a glowing bit of dark silver buried deep in the warmth and love Magnus felt for him; under the attention, it flared like an ember, throwing off a few bright sparks of cheer. A thin vein of living gold ran through it, pulsing slow and steady.

Magnus opened his eyes, his vision skewing sideways for a moment before the world resettled and he could pick out the weave of Alec's suit jacket. Once he sat back up straight, he found taking a deep breath far easier than it had been.

At the coffee table, Max was frowning down at the rune but his eyes were unfocused as if his thoughts were elsewhere. Izzy poured more wine into her glass and passed it to Clary, who was still pale and looked like she could use some fortifying. Was it the process of having the vision or what the vision had revealed?

Next to her, Jace's eyes were luminescent. Magnus glanced at Alec and found his eyes the same, despite being firmly anchored by holding Magnus' hand — a deliberate decision then. What they were communicating, Magnus couldn't begin to guess, but Jace's expression was determined. After a moment, Alec dropped his head and nodded.

Maryse said, "We need a plan."

Izzy, who had been looking back and forth between Alec and Jace, suddenly sat back from the table. "We do. Clary, you and Jace go back to the Institute and sketch out the ceremony."

That was a good idea. It would provide details and help biscuit to process it. Maybe Magnus should brush up on his sketching skills. Tonight.

"It'll be a lot of power, biscuit," he said quietly. "Wrap it up well." She didn't look over, but did wave the wine glass in acknowledgment.

"Mom and I will go back and discuss handling the Clave," Izzy continued, "although any decisions will be subject to change until we have firm plans."

"What about me?" Max asked.

 _"You_ need to go to bed since you have to be in Idris in," Izzy looked at her phone, "far too few hours."

Max sighed loudly and draped his upper body theatrically over the coffee table. "The training runs are fun but the classes are stupid and the speeches are the _worst._ C'mon, Alec, I'll do anything. I'll do inventory. I'll finish my tactics analysis. I won't even complain much about ichor duty!" He was overselling it, but Magnus appreciated the attempt to diffuse the tension.

Izzy looked over at him. "Wait, you haven't finished your last tactics analysis yet?"

Max straightened back up with a much more genuine look of alarm.

Next to Magnus, Alec was silent. Magnus looked at him and found Alec staring blankly at the city lights glowing through the windows, completely oblivious to Max's dramatic efforts and inadvertent admissions.

Maryse cleared her throat. "I don't like it either, Max, but it's far too late to make alternate arrangements." Her voice was quiet again but remarkably steady. "And we certainly don't want to tip our hand before we even have any plans laid. Which means you need to be in Idris as scheduled and, while you're there, act like everything is perfectly normal unless you hear otherwise from someone in this room. I will join you as soon as I can."

"We'll regroup in the morning," Jace said to the room at large, then he glanced at Alec. "We'll see how things stand then."

Alec's grip on Magnus' hand had loosened, but at Jace's words, it tightened back up again.

Izzy looked between her two older brothers again and then nodded. "Yes, that's a… very good idea."

Clary, who had at least regained some of her color, drained the last of the glass of wine. "Maybe Ithuriel's messages are easier when there's adrenaline in my system. Help me up, Jace."  Jace scrambled to his feet so she could balance against him on the way up.

Maryse stood, then came and crouched down behind Magnus and Alec. She wrapped an arm around each of their shoulders and kissed the side of Alec's head before doing the same to Magnus. "I love you both," she said. "We'll all talk in the morning."

Magnus was vaguely aware of them all leaving but it was still several long minutes before the silence really penetrated his consciousness.

Alec let go of Magnus' hand to scrub at his face. Magnus waved the extra glasses away to the sink, the pretzels back to the cupboard, and the brush and ink back to storage. Then he turned the paper with the rune around and looked at it. The thin ink had dried and he ran a finger around the edges of it, his magic sparking along the lines. It was like it recognized a mark of power even if the entirety of the world lay between their origins. On the other hand, the only difference between Magnus' father and Ithuriel was a long fall, so perhaps the origins weren't so distant as Magnus imagined.

"I don't even know where to start," Alec said like a confession.

Magnus already knew he was going to step in that circle, that he was going to let Alec mark his skin regardless of the price to be paid. After all, to say no would be to tear out his own heart.

Magnus drank the last of the wine in his glass and sat it back down. Then he turned toward Alec, who was looking at him with a kind of blank incomprehension, like the night's revelations were a vast sea his mind was trying to conquer. Magnus lifted a hand and cradled Alec's jaw. He rubbed his thumb across the late day shadow and wondered for a moment what Alec would look like with his beard fully grown in rather than two or three days of neglected stubble. There was a part of Magnus that was breathless with shock that he wouldn't have to give him up. Not to age, at any rate, not to natural causes. There was also a small part that mourned the older Alec he'd never get to meet, a life Alec would never get to experience. The first was winning out by a large margin, but it was all too much and Magnus still couldn't quite feel his fingertips.

Alec leaned into Magnus' hand. "You can say no, Magnus. Don't say yes just becau—"

Magnus shifted his hand enough so that his thumb rested over Alec's lips and Alec fell silent. "No isn't an option, Alexander. Not really. If it makes you feel better, my choice is entirely selfish. I am invested in keeping you for as long as I can."

"Do you mean that?" Alec asked very seriously.

"Yes, very much so," Magnus answered with equal gravitas.

Alec smiled a little and one hand came up to Magnus' wrist. He tugged Magnus' hand back down, taking it in both of his, and shifted around so he was sitting facing Magnus. "There's something—" He stopped, dropped his eyes down to their hands. He'd loosened his tie and undone the top buttons of his shirt before he'd even made it home and Magnus lifted his free hand to trail a finger down the hollow of his throat. Alec swallowed hard.

"Something?" Magnus prompted, a tiny bit of concern setting in.

Alec closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath, then straightened up. He looked beautiful and brave and so very determined. "There's something you should know. Just in case," he said. "There's a couple of things, actually. But one of them is… well, it was kind of big for me before all this, but especially now."


	10. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alec is Alec but a ring is not just a ring.

"There's a—" Alec cut himself off. That wasn't the way he wanted to ask. "Magnus, I wanted—" No, that wasn't right either. He'd _known_ this would happen. It had been so much easier the first time, but it hadn't been Magnus in front of him. That had been… different. This was everything.

At least home wasn't a bad place to be doing this, but they were sitting on the _floor._ It wasn't a floor sitting kind of furniture arrangement, so it was just awkward — no, he couldn't stop and reposition, not now that he'd already started. Damnit.

He was glad he was holding onto one of Magnus' hands because he was sure his own would be shaking otherwise.

He swallowed down the lump in his throat, steeled himself, and tried again. "I have a token. A ring. For you, that is, if you want it." He winced. Oh _angel_ , what was he even saying? "I have a ring because I was going to ask you if you would like to marry me. I was waiting until we got all this fixed but now— Now it's… complicated."

Had that made any sense? He'd tried practicing, but he'd never actually managed it without feeling like he was going to pass out. Izzy had told him to be himself and then grimaced like she could see foresee the inevitable disaster. Jace had tried to be supportive by pointing out Magnus already knew Alec had no game. It hadn't helped.

Magnus was staring at him, apparently stunned speechless. Shocked maybe. Was that good or bad? Hopefully it wasn't bad. "This really isn't how I wanted to ask you," Alec said, "but given tonight's revelations, and the whole… rune… thing… I need you to know. Just in case."

Magnus brought his free hand up to cover his mouth and tears started to well up in his eyes. Oh, damnit, he'd made Magnus cry. Alec tried blinking back his own sympathetic tears but it was no use. His heart was racing, his stomach was in knots, his brain felt all weirdly fizzy, and now he was going to start crying. He didn't even know _why_ they were crying! Magnus was still staring at him, now with tears spilling down his face.

Alec tried smiling back although he didn't know how convincing it was. "You don't have to answer or anything, not right now. I just wanted you to know before… everything." That was enough, right? He'd gotten it all out?

Magnus dropped his hand away from his mouth and said softly, "Alexander, you have unraveled me. I am entirely undone." He started laughing through the tears. "You know the answer is yes!"

"It _is?"_ Alec asked in shock. "No! No, I didn't know!"

Magnus tackled him backwards to the floor to kiss him. "Foolish nephilim," Magnus said, grinning between kisses, "how could you not know that?"

"You might have thought it was a terrible idea! Or that we were rushing! I'm always the one rushing the big things!"

Magnus kissed him again, slower this time. Alec was trying to kiss him back but it was complicated by trying to swallow tears and having to breath around the the shaky sensation in his stomach and knees. Magnus pulled away and bent his head to hide his face in Alec's neck for several long moments. Alec wrapped his arms around Magnus and let his own eyes slide closed. One of them was shaking a little, or maybe both of them, and Alec took a few deep breaths as Magnus' tears dripped down onto his neck.

When he finally lifted up enough to look at Alec again, Magnus said,  "I may have, in the past, been inclined to worry that anything more than glacially slow might send you running away from me."

Alec squinted up at Magnus, offended by that statement both on his own and on Magnus' behalf.

"I used to think I was too much for people," Magnus said with a smile. "Then I met you and it didn't stop me from falling head over heels for you at all. I was sure you were going to break my heart so spectacularly."

Alec lifted his head and kissed Magnus because he couldn't let that statement pass without a reminder that he might have broken it a little bit, but they'd managed to put it back together again. Then he dropped back down to the rug and, around a throat still clogged with tears, confessed in a hoarse voice, "This really isn't how I imagined proposing."

Magnus pulled further away to prop himself up on Alec's chest. He was half a mess with watery, red rimmed eyes, tear tracks, and magically still perfect eyeliner. He looked soft around the edges with joy lighting him up like the morning sun. Alec's heart beat extra hard a few times and it seemed for a moment like he might be imagining everything being absolutely perfect.

"You had plans?" Magnus asked, ignoring the tear tracks on his own face to wipe at the ones on Alec's instead.

Alec sniffled. "I had… plans that there would be plans."

Magnus ducked his head, still smiling, and kissed Alec quickly. "Go wash your face and blow your nose, Alexander, and bring my ring back with you."

Alec laughed and untangled himself. He made it upright and was even halfway to the bedroom before he had to look back. Magnus looked so _happy._ Then Alec damn near walked into the wall instead of through the doorway. Fortunately, he caught sight of it out of the corner of his eye and course corrected at the last minute. In the shadows of the bedroom, he quickly shed his tie and jacket, then rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt while wiping at his face with the back of his hands. It either didn't help or made it worse: he caught sight of himself in the bathroom mirror and huffed out a laugh. Between the mess of tears, the five o'clock shadow, and how he had to keep sniffling, this was _definitely_ not how he'd planned on asking Magnus to marry him.

Once he'd cleaned up, he passed back through the bedroom and retrieved the ring box from the bottom of his sock drawer, his hand finding it as much by habit as feel. He ignored the butterflies in his stomach because there was nothing to be nervous about. Magnus had literally already said yes. Which was good because Alec had barely survived more or less asking the question the first time.

Out in the lounge, Magnus had at least moved to the couch and cleaned his own face. Alec sat down and pulled one leg up so he could face him, then held the box up in his palm and opened it towards Magnus to show the ring inside.

Admittedly, a ring was a common choice. Shadowhunters didn't have firm traditions for what was used for an engagement token and he'd double checked with Cat, who'd confirmed warlocks didn't have any either. A ring suited Magnus too well to go looking for something else, though, so that decision had been easy. Choosing the _right_ ring had been a different challenge all together.

He'd had no qualms about dragging Jace along to what felt like roughly a million jewelry stores — not that he'd had to do much dragging. Jace had split his time between making more or less helpful comments and trying not to look like he was staring at things that were better suited to Clary. Alec was absolutely sure Clary would be the one to propose because it was going to take Jace several more years at the rate he was going. Really, it made Alec felt downright competent by comparison.

In the end, despite the million jewelry stores from large to small, he'd had it custom made at a tiny, hole-in-the-wall place with a proprietor Alec wasn't entirely sure was a mundane. He was fairly sure they weren't, actually. Regardless, the finished piece had been perfect: a band of dark, heavy silver inset with a thin stripe of yellow gold offset from the center and an even thinner stripe of red gold within the yellow.

"Silver to go with all your other rings," Alec explained to Magnus as he held up the box. "Gold for ceremonies and," he shrugged a bit sheepishly, "Shadowhunter tradition. Red for magic. Well, reddish."

While Alec had been talking, Magnus' look of happiness had slowly morphed into shock. He was staring at the ring, eyes wide, hands halfway to the box and fists clenched like he was trying not to touch. Which was the opposite of what was supposed to be happening. Alec went to take the ring out but Magnus quickly reached out and stopped him. He wrapped his own hands around Alec's, cradling the box between them.

"Wait, Alec. Alexander. This is—" He hesitated and then finally looked up at Alec. "I can't take this as an engagement token."

Alec's stomach dropped. Oh god. He looked back down at the ring. He'd hoped Magnus would like it but he hadn't actually thought he'd _hate_ it.

Magnus half rose onto one knee with his other foot on the floor and leaned in to cradle Alec's face in his hands. "Alexander, no, sweetheart, please don't look like that. Let me explain. You haven't brought me a simple token of engagement. I think— no, I'm certain what you've brought me is actually…" The pause wasn't the least bit comfortable for Alec, who was all but holding his breath. Finally Magnus finished with, "Let's call it an alliance gift. Although even that under values it by quite a bit."

"What?" Alec asked, blinking at him in confusion. "No I didn't. We didn't even know Alliance was thing until tonight. I've had this for weeks."

Magnus shook his head and trailed his hands down Alec's neck even as his eyes dropped down to the box Alec still held aloft between them. "Not on purpose, not like that, but—" He hesitated, then carefully took the box from Alec and turned it around so it faced Alec. "The silver is you. The bit of gold is the parabatai bond, your bond with Jace. The thin slice of red gold here is a bit surprising, but I'm almost certain it's Clary and the claim she lays to Jace. Alec this doesn't represent your heart, this ring you're trying to give me represents your _soul."_

Alec frowned as Magnus lifted one of Alec's hands to set the box back in it gingerly. As if he were hesitant to even touch it. "You're saying I've completely fucked this up." Alec didn't know how yet, but this definitely sounded like he'd fucked something up.

"No, Alexander, I'm saying I need you to know what you are offering me. This is much, much more than an engagement token and I need you to understand that before I accept it." He sat back on the couch, placed his hands carefully in his lap, and looked at Alec with a very serious expression.

Alec couldn't figure out what he was missing. Nothing he'd heard so far had sounded like a problem, let alone one to rate that kind of look. "You're saying I somehow brought you a representation of my soul."

"Yes."

"Okay then. How?"

"I'm not entirely sure. It feels a bit like that little proto-bond we're sharing, the thing that's letting me anchor you, so perhaps that influenced your choice. Regardless, I know it without a doubt. I can feel it. And I need you to be completely sure you want me to have this."

Fine, representation of his soul. Weirder things had happened. But did Magnus not want it? No, he kept saying _Alec_ needed to be sure. Which didn't make much sense. Slowly, he said, "Magnus, as near as we can tell, I'm literally handing you access to my soul in a week. You'll be inside the parabatai circle; there's nothing else it could be. Why would I object to giving you a representation of something we're actually doing?"

Magnus smiled and ducked his head for a minute, then looked back up. "The name Ithuriel provided Clary is surely deliberate and it tells me the ceremony is about grounding power and sharing resources. An alliance is political _,_ regardless of the motivations of the parties involved. There are rules to that kind of arrangement, even if we don't know exactly what they are yet." He lifted his hands and rubbed them over the backs of Alec's, the box held between them. "This is something else entirely because I am not a nephilim, Alexander. I am _Magnus Bane._ You are offering unfettered access to your soul to the son of a greater demon."

Comprehension dawned and the last of Alec's worry subsided. And Magnus had called _him_ foolish.

He pulled his hands free of Magnus' and ran one finger over the surface of the ring. It gleamed silver, the shine chasing after his touch, traveling easily into the shadow on one side. Well that was a bit unusual. Had it done that before? Alec stroked the ring again and the light danced across the surface just the same, a little more sparkle to it the second time. It did feel like _something,_ but he and Jace had been fighting the bond so much that things had been pretty loud in Alec's head lately. In his soul where the bond lived.

It would have been easy to miss if he didn't know it was there for all that he hadn't been able to keep his hands off of the ring itself even when, at first, it had been in his old bedroom at the Institute. He'd tucked it away in a drawer there but it had felt too far and he'd ended up taking the trip up to the residential floor multiple times a day. So then he'd kept it in his desk. Or tried to, but it had ended up in one of his pockets as often as not, and eventually he'd ended up carrying it home on accident. After that, he'd given in and stashed it at the loft in his sock drawer. But even at the loft, when there'd been the possibility of Magnus walking in, he hadn't been able to resist taking it out to look at whenever he was home.

Alec straightened up, turned the box back around so it faced Magnus, and offered it up with both hands. Magnus had been watching Alec silently, but as soon as Alec held up the box, Magnus' eyes dropped down and he stared at the ring like it was something he really wanted but didn't think was his to take. There was a bittersweet ache in Alec's chest; he hated that expression on Magnus, but at least it was easy to fix.

"Magnus Bane," he said, his attempt at formality somewhat marred by the smile he couldn't suppress, "I have already given you my heart, and now I offer you my soul as well. Will you do me the honor of accepting this ring as a token of my love for you, our existing bond, the forthcoming Alliance between us, and as a promise of marriage?"

Magnus looked at Alec, then down at the ring, and then back up at Alec again. He looked like he'd been stripped down to his barest self without a single defense left and Alec desperately wanted to wrap him up in his arms, but there was still a step left. Alec could offer, but Magnus needed to accept.

"You are utterly mad," Magnus murmured a little helplessly. Then he closed his eyes for a moment and took a breath. When he opened them again, he'd let go of his glamour. Not just the bit on his eyes, but every scrap of it, even the parts that hid some of the more powerful aspects of his magic from those with the sight. Normally Alec needed an active spiritum rune to see the whole of it, but suddenly even the faint blue wisps that lay close to Magnus' skin were visible. Magnus had told him they weren't always there, especially when he was tired or his magic was depleted, but obviously neither of those things were the case at the moment: There was a virtual halo of blue sparks dancing across his skin and clothes, through the strands of his hair, and concentrating around his fingers.

Magnus straightened up, drew his shoulders back, and raised his chin, taking on an unmistakably regal bearing. The man looking back at Alec was not only a warlock of great strength, but also the most treasured son of Asmodeus and heir to the throne of Edom.

"Alexander Gideon Lightwood," he said, "I accept the token you are offering me and all it represents." Regardless of the power he was wearing like a mantle, Magnus' voice was rough and thick with emotion. So much power and so much heart and all of it the man Alec loved.

Alec tugged the ring out of its box and reached down to coax Magnus' shaking left hand free of its fist. He slid the ring onto the bare ring finger and, for a moment, it was just a tiny bit too loose. Magnus lifted his right hand and stroked it reverently; there was the slightest trace of blue, a swift shine of silver in response, and suddenly it fit perfectly. Alec's heart climbed right up in his throat.

Magnus looked up and smiled. "It's beautiful," he whispered.

Alec leaned in and kissed Magnus a little desperately. Then he pulled back as a sudden panic slipped in. "Wait, you didn't say yes because of the bond, did you? I'm not making you do anything, right?"

Magnus looked startled for a moment and then he laughed. "No, my love, it's not that kind of bond. It's just a thin little thing. It's useful, but it would have fallen away to nothing if we didn't keep inadvertently refreshing it."

Alec sighed in relief. He took both of Magnus' hands in his, threading their fingers together heedless of the blue sparks. He couldn't feel them, not at the moment, but some of them danced over to Alec's own skin, spreading playfully up to his wrist.

Magnus smiled down at their hands and rubbed his thumbs over Alec's. "During the demon lull," he said, "when the bond was being so erratic, it probably went looking for anchors and, lucky for you two, it found them."

Alec grinned. "And the sex magic?"

Magnus laughed again and dropped his head. "It was just a convenient pathway. The repetition and extremity of the emotion involved provided fuel." He freed his hands from Alec's, put one on either side of Alec's face. "I chose you long before there was any kind of bond, Alexander. I have chosen you now and I will always choose you."

It was too much for a moment and Alec let his eyes slide closed just so he could breathe. Magnus took advantage and leaned in to kiss him, lingering for several long heartbeats before sitting back. Alec smiled and opened his eyes.

"I can sense it now that I know it's there, though," Magnus said, looking thoughtful. He wriggled the fingers of his left hand. "And I think this is amplifying it. I could strengthen it a bit as well. It might help in the short term between now and establishing the alliance."

"Yeah, that would probably be good. What do we need to do?"

Magnus' sudden grin was entirely wicked. "Take me to bed, Alexander, and you'll find out."

_Oh._ Alec held up one finger, then he quickly unbuttoned and stripped out of his dress shirt. Magnus had tilted his head in confusion, but after Alec got out his stele and activated his strength rune, Magnus' eyebrows went up. Then Alec stood up and held out his arms.

Magnus rolled to his feet, wrapped his arms around Alec's neck, and hopped up to wrap his legs around Alec's waist. "This wasn't at all what I meant," he said, grinning again, "but I'm not complaining." Then he immediately started crooning "Mine! Mine! Mine!" on repeat.

"You know I was yours already, right?" Alec asked, amused and a little giddy, as he walked them to the bedroom with Magnus' long legs tight around his hips.

Magnus ignored the question. Instead he slid his hands up into Alec's hair even as he started kissing Alec's face and nipping at his neck while still chanting "Mine! _"_ in a chipper sing song.

In the bedroom, Alec made an attempt at undressing Magnus one handed, but Magnus was too busy wrapping himself around Alec to be the least bit helpful. Alec finally just untangled himself and dropped Magnus on the bed. Magnus, of course, fell gracefully backward as if he intended to do it all along. He landed on the blue satin sheets with his arms flung wide, the blue shimmer of his magic gaining strength and glowing brighter in the dim shadows of the unlit room.

Alec paused, dumbstruck by the way his power served as cloak and crown to the beauty of his heart.

_"Mine,"_ Magnus said in a voice that had dropped into something darker and distinctly possessive. The feeling of his voice made Alec shiver and his mouth water. He swallowed hard as arousal pooled like heat in his belly.

Alec's belt suddenly removed itself. Remembering the current goal was nudity, he stripped his own clothes off and then started trying to undress Magnus. Magnus still wasn't much help since he was too busy groping Alec as soon as Alec was in reach again. Alec was pretty determined though, _and_ he had an active strength rune, so he managed. He unfastened Magnus' necklaces and dropped them off the side of the bed, then slid off Magnus' rings — save one — and tossed them further out of the way. Hopefully far enough they wouldn't step on them later.

It might have been Alec's own possessiveness that had him stripping Magnus down to nothing more than the single ring. Alec was completely okay with that.

Magnus' distractions got harder to ignore after that and it took a bit before they made it up to the pillows, side by side and all tangled up together in frantic, messy kissing. Eventually, Alec managed to pull back far enough to speak, which meant Magnus immediately detoured down to his neck and set his teeth in Alec's deflect rune. Alec groaned. "What do I— How—" Magnus' tongue started doing something to the new sore spot and Alec's brain lit up like it was on fire.

Magnus left off Alec's neck and rolled them over so that he was underneath, then he grinned upward at Alec. "It's _sex_ magic, Alexander. What do you think you need to do?"

Oh. Well… Alec could do that.

He threaded his fingers through Magnus' and stretched their arms up above their heads. Magnus, with his wandering hands suddenly trapped, wriggled his whole body instead and tried chasing after Alec's mouth with his own. Alec dropped more of his weight down, caught Magnus' legs with his, and kissed him gently. Magnus swore under his breath and Alec smiled against his lips.

He understood the impatience. He could feel the urgency in his own body. But sex magic didn't seem like the sort of thing that should be rushed and anticipation was like the long draw of a bow when you had time to make sure your arrow made the target.

Alec set out to kiss Magnus very, _very_ thoroughly. He started slow, with the kind of kisses that were little more than shallow brushings of lips and an occasional sweet slick slide that made Magnus groan and his body tighten down by increments. Then, when Magnus was wound tense under him, the grip of his hands almost painfully tight, Alec changed the game and kissed him hard and deep. One breathless, bruising kiss after another, the kind of kisses that you threw your whole body into, the kind you had to gasp for air in the gap between one and the next. Magnus pressed up into those kisses, his hands flexing as he gave the occasional hiss of frustration until he finally dropped back, still impatient but the tension released. Then Alec started kissing him slow again.

Magnus shifted under him, restless and briefly disgruntled. He tugged one hand free, but then just brushed his fingers over Alec's already tender lips and then his own. Alec smiled as the prickling faded away and laced their fingers back together when Magnus slipped his hand back into Alec's.

The rhythm established, Alec settled in. He didn't bother keeping count of how many times they repeated the cycle or of how much time passed, but after a while Magnus came down out of a breathless kiss with a hard shudder. Alec lightened his touch but Magnus had started trembling and it didn't ebb. Alec kissed him even more gently then as Magnus began breaking apart underneath him. Soon there were quiet whimpers slipping free, helpless little cries as the long stretch of him slowly relaxed under the weight of Alec's body.

It was perfect, but they were far from done. Alec was half hard, they both were and had been for a while, but it was still secondary for the moment. It was enough for now to rock their hips together from time to time, an occasional lazy surge of arousal making Alec's breath hitch. More importantly, with Magnus finally still and waiting, Alec could wander further afield.

The angle of the moonlight had shifted across the covers since they'd first crashed down on the bed and Alec began exploring some of the changed shadows cast in the dips and hollows of their bodies. He nipped here and there as a sharp punctuation to the softer wandering of his hands down Magnus' arms and sides, across his chest, down around his thighs. It was never long, though, before he slid back up Magnus' body and nipped at an earlobe or nudged Magnus' chin back to trace the lines of his throat again. He would take Magnus' hands back in his own each time, threading their fingers together, and the feel of that single, solitary ring was like a gleam of silver in his mind.

Alec's sense of time and place dissolved into the damp heat of Magnus' skin, the slickness of the satin sheets, the sound of Magnus gasping for air next to Alec's ear, the hard band of silver biting into yielding flesh. Eventually, somewhere in the middle of everything, Magnus sighed sweetly against Alec's lips and Alec felt the sparks of magic start spreading over to him, dancing along the surface of his skin. Unlike the usual fleeting brush when Magnus' magic touched him with intent, this settled along every inch of Alec's body and didn't leave. The tingling was stronger at each rune and he quickly lost the control he'd managed so far; soon he couldn't stop shivering for the feel of it.

"Magnus," Alec whispered against Magnus' lips, both as a plea and for the need to name him.

Magnus freed his hands and ran them firmly down Alec's sides, his blunt nails scratched along the sensitized skin. Alec couldn't breathe for the way it lit him up.

"Alexander Gideon Lightwood, my entirely unexpected angel." Magnus' quiet voice was hoarse and desperate. "I am going to keep you for as long as you'll let me."

Alec managed to brace himself on shaking arms and rise up just enough to meet Magnus' eyes. His heart felt wide open and all of him was wrapped up in Magnus' magic as it sank into his skin and settled into his bones. "Forever then," he said.

Magnus lips parted and his pupils dilated so wide they were nearly round.

Alec slid down through the blue aura of Magnus' magic like he was coming home and kissed him gently. "I love you, Magnus," Alec whispered against his mouth.

Alec rolled his hips against Magnus', magic easing the way for their cocks to slide slick against each other. Magnus made a small, whimpering noise, then hooked a leg around one of Alec's thighs and thrust up. Alec ground down against him, chasing the friction and pressure. Panting for air, he wrapped his arms around Magnus' shoulders and Magnus' arms wrapped around Alec's ribs. They were locked up so tight together they could hardly move but Alec could feel his orgasm rising anyway. He held on, shaking in Magnus' arms, every inch of his skin an individual spark of sensation as the magic tightened down around them like a narrowing focus.

It was almost a surprise when he came and the world whited out.


	11. The Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus and Alec have a pre-dawn conversation, Maryse and Izzy have a plan, and Jace and Clary have regrets.

Magnus woke up slowly in the thin, cold light of a false dawn. Alec's fingers were threaded through Magnus' hand, holding it so that he could trail his mouth over the palm. Magnus' brain hadn't fully engaged and he lay there for a couple of minutes while Alec's lips wandered up Magnus' fingers and then all the way back down to his wrist. When he finally went to speak, the thought in his head was along the lines of _what are you doing?_ but what actually came out was, "mmmmrt?"

Alec looked up at him and smiled with his face flushed and eyes shining. It was the smile that always made Magnus forget absolutely anything else going on around them. "Good morning, beautiful."

Then Magnus realized it was his left hand Alec had been paying so much dedicated attention to and— _oh._ Magnus freed his hand, wrapped himself around Alec, and kissed him thoroughly.

Eventually they surfaced for air, Magnus' lips stinging again from the scrape of Alec's bristled jaw. "And good morning to you, Alexander. How are you this fine sunrise?"

"I'm doing pretty well," Alec said with another smile. This one was terribly besotted. Sappy through and through.

It was a good look on him. Magnus was very fond of it. "I feel like we should have a serious conversation about time and immortality," he said. Not that he really wanted to. It seemed like far too hefty a topic for the pre-dawn hours and the bubbly effervescence in his brain.

Alec hummed neutrally.

"I'd say I've never had that conversation with a nephilim before, but that's not actually true."

"It's _not_ true?" Alec's eyebrows went up. "There are other immortal Shadowhunters running around I don't know about?"

"Jem— Brother Zachariah."

"Silent Brothers aren't really immortal though."

"No, but it's very different from standard mortality. And there's Tessa. Tessa Gray."

"Oh, right, I forgot. Jace's great something grandmother. Half nephilim, half warlock."

"All warlock and half nephilim would be more accurate, but yes. She's still researching in the Spiral Labyrinth so I haven't talked to her in while. Once Jem returns from sabbatical and gets word of these new developments, though, I'm sure she'll hear of it. I wouldn't be surprised to see her in the next year or so."

"Jace is going to be prickly," Alec warned.

"Jem will smooth the way and Tessa's well used to prickly. It will be fine. She'll have a relevant perspective for all that her circumstances were very different."

Alec rolled his eyes and smiled again, soft this time in idle amusement. "Funny thing but Jace, Clary, and I are all going to be literally soul bonded to an immortal warlock who _maybe_ has a relevant perspective on this whole concept."

"I know you know a person can do with hearing more than one perspective, Alexander," Magnus said dryly. "And Jace has a thick skull. The more times he hears something, the better."

"Wow," Alec laughed, "usually everyone says it's the other way around between the two of us." He leaned in and kissed Magnus again, briefly this time, just a quick peck on the lips, and then sobered. "Okay, so, last night I told you there were two things I needed to talk to you about."

"You did?"

Alec nodded.

Something _else?_

"Are you pregnant?" Magnus asked gravely.

The look of shock that came over Alec's face was priceless. "What? No! _What?"_

"Granted, that would be quite impressive on multiple counts, but considering all the other big announcements in the last week, let alone in the last 12 hours, I can't imagine what could possibly be left."

Alec was laughing. "Oh my god, no!" He rubbed at his eyes with one hand and muttered, "By the angel."

Magnus, feeling very satisfied at having produced a laughing Alec, settled more comfortably into his pillows. "Okay, tell me your latest news. Do I need coffee for this?"

Alec was still smiling, so that boded well at least. "No, this isn't that kind of big announcement. Or maybe it is. I mean," he huffed out a breath of air and rubbed at his face, "it's nothing bad. I'm mostly looking forward to it."

"Mostly? Maybe you should tell me what 'it' is."

"I'm not going to be running the New York Institute for much longer. No, wait—" Alec stopped Magnus before he could even say anything. "I'm not being relieved of command or anything. I'm promoting Clary to co-head and she'll be doing most of the day to day operations."

Magnus looked at him for a moment. Alec's smile had turned tremulous, as if he were more nervous about Magnus' reaction than about the news itself. Magnus finally said, "Given the conversation I had with your mother last night about Alicante _suggestions—"_

"This is entirely my idea, I swear. I'll still take over temporarily when necessary and I'm not ruling out running it again solo in the future if needed."

"So why make this choice then? It's been important to you as long as I've known you. By all reports, it's been important to you almost as long as you've had a bow. Giving up day to day operations sounds like a pretty big step back."

Alec took Magnus' hand again and folded their arms up between them. His thumb started rubbing against the back of Magnus' new ring. "A lot of reasons. For one, it will let me take over Max's training for the last couple of years, which will cut his required time in Idris down to the bare minimum. I'll admit I don't know what comes after that, but in the meantime it will also free me up to go on missions with Jace." He smiled. "Right now it seems one-half of the Institute's parabatai is clear back in Ops when something goes down halfway across the city. If we really need Clary, she's a lot more," he shrugged, "mobile."

Magnus lifted his free hand and cupped Alec's cheek. Alec sighed and his eyes slipped closed, head pressing into the caress ever so slightly. That didn't sound like the whole story but Alec was relaxed and he really did seem okay just talking about it. He _felt_ okay with it which was… different. Magnus chased the sensation with half his attention and said, "It sounds like Clary's already accepted the role."

"Yeah." Alec's eyes re-opened. "I talked to her about it yesterday. We've been informally training her for a while on the theory she could serve as temporary head and spare Jace and Izzy since they hate it. I wasn't planning on doing it _now,_ it was mostly just an idea, but I realized it was a good safety net to have before we were given the Consul's recommendation."

"There was a chance she could have pulled you and Jace from active duty."

"I'm surprised she didn't, to be honest, which is why we rushed making it official yesterday afternoon. It's not like Clary isn't ready anyway. I think she'll be good at it and I'm not going far." He smiled again. "I haven't had a chance to tell Mom yet, but I already sent copies of the official notice to Alicante, so it's on file."

The sense of _okay_ Magnus felt didn't lead anywhere in particular, but instead dissipated out into a soft/warm/sweet ball of fluff that Magnus was pretty sure was Alec being happy. The effect was all a good bit stronger than he'd expected, but he wasn't going to fret over it too much considering they were going to be soul bonded very soon. Magnus shifted his hand and ran a thumb across the curve of Alec's lips. He had a hundred different smiles and all of them beautiful. Magnus was going to have _so long_ to catalog each and every— Something else suddenly occurred to him. "Alec, are you turning _Clary Fairchild_ loose on the Council?"

The smile grew into an evil smirk. Oh dear. Magnus started laughing.

Once Magnus was down to intermittent giggles and had caught his breath, Alec said, "So that's the plan. Jace will still be assistant head and in charge of personnel, Izzy will still be the weapons master along with her five dozen other titles, and I'll be training Max, backing up Clary, and going wherever I'm needed. For a couple of years anyway. Like I said, I don't know what comes after that but I shouldn't have quite so many late nights at the Institute." Alec was still spinning the ring on Magnus' finger and Magnus suspected he didn't even know he was doing it.

Magnus hooked a leg over Alec's hip and Alec slid in, closing the few inches separating them. "Well the Downworld will certainly be glad to have more of your time. I feel like I'm fielding your callers left and right."

Alec smiled — this one was sweet and calm — and kissed him. Magnus wrapped his arms around Alec and forgot about plans and politics and everything else for now. They were going to have to get up and preferably shower before Izzy called, but dawn was barely breaking. The rest of the world could wait for a few more minutes.

 

* * *

 

Eventually they did stumble out of bed and take showers. Well, technically it was one shower, but they didn't get too distracted, so it was actually a getting clean kind of thing. Mostly.

They were eating an informal breakfast at the kitchen island — Belgian waffles, because Magnus was both sentimental and easily amused — when Magnus' phone trilled. He put down his fork and picked up his coffee before answering it with a cheery, "Good morning, Isabelle!"

"Final decision, Magnus. I'm walking down the hall to meet mom, Jace, and Clary." She sounded harried, but she'd likely been up half the night strategizing with her mother.

"There was no decision to be made," he said. Across the island, Alec didn't look up from where he was swirling the waffle on his fork through syrup, but he'd apparently guessed the content of the question and he smiled. This one was a small, private thing.

"I'll take that as official confirmation we should proceed with the ceremony." Her voice softened. "Welcome to the family a bit more officially, Magnus."

He knew she wasn't talking about the ring he was wearing since she couldn't know about the engagement yet, but he smiled anyway, his hand clenching around the band. They weren't telling anyone until at least a week or so after the alliance ceremony so he'd have to take it off and hide it away much too soon. He bit his lip, not quite able to reply.

The ambient noise on the other end increased as Izzy switched over to speaker phone and there was the sound of a door opening and closing. Magnus put his own phone on speaker and sat it on the island between he and Alec… Who was watching him like a besotted fool again.

The whole keeping it a secret thing was a plan doomed to fail.

Izzy launched right in. "Okay, the shortest— how much did you two drink last night?!"

There was a groan and then Clary said, "Too much. Definitely too much."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Jace mumbled, barely loud enough for the speaker to pick up.

"Have you even— you know what, we'll worry about it later. Here." There was the sound of glasses clinking and liquid being poured. "Water. Drink it. You're going to have to pick your head up to do it, Jace. Now, as I was saying, the shortest reasonable time mom and I could come up with was a week. Well, eight days, technically."

Maryse spoke up. "Any shorter and we're risking political ramifications." She sounded amused, probably because Jace suffering from his own, non-life threatening bad decisions was always entertaining.

"A week should be fine." Jace sounded like he'd managed to make it upright. His voice was clearer, at any rate.

"What are we doing about things in the mean time?" Clary asked. "You're admitting to being compromised."

"Yeah, we'll need to make a show of it," Alec said, putting down his coffee cup and joining the conversation. "Jace and I will go on voluntary administrative stand down. You're acting head as of now, Clary." Magnus watched him bite back a laugh. "Or, you know, when you sober up. I'll come in today and make sure you're up to speed, and then hang out with Magnus for the next week. Jace, you'll have to stick close to Clary. Like the same room close."

"Yeah—" Jace started and then stopped. "Wait. The whole week?"

"Yes."

"While she's serving as head of the Institute?"

"Still yes."

"You get a week's vacation and I get stuck in your office?"

Alec smirked. "That would be an accurate summary."

"This is a terrible plan. You're supposed to have my back, Alec."

"It's a week. You'll survive as long as you don't piss Clary off too much."

There were a couple of suspicious coughs on the other end.

"If it makes you feel better," Alec added, "I'll have to at least stay in New York. Which means we're going to miss our dinner reservations in Mumbai."

"No, Alec, that does not make me feel better."

Alec opened up his phone. "Hmmm, shame. You'll come here for today while I'm at the Institute." He typed a note on his phone: _chocolate/alcohol for Clary._

Magnus nodded and pulled the phone across the marble to add _and new dagger._

"Hold on," Izzy said, "you can swap anchors?"

Alec grinned and reached over to type _definitely not._

"No," Jace grumbled, his tone leaning towards bitchy, "but a little distance might help. Plus, if we slip, we'll have someone with us who knows what's going on."

"True. Okay, mom and I will be leaving for Alicante in a few hours. We'll present it to the Consul, ostensibly for approval, with a hard deadline."

"Ooo, fun!" Clary observed with blatantly false cheer.

Then Izzy added, "If it gets rough, we're calling you in to recount the vision in person."

"Ooo, not so fun."

Maryse, still sounding amused, warned her, "By the end of the week, that will sound like a nice break." Magnus wasn't sure if she was talking about running the Institute or dealing with a cooped up Jace. Or both.

"Yeah, probably," Clary said sadly.


	12. Tea at the High Warlock's Lair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus' wards have probably been hanging out with his cell phone too much, Jace still doesn't have enough of a self-preservation instinct, and a select group of people are summoned to the High Warlock's lair where tea (and blood) are served.

That afternoon, Magnus was standing at the balcony doors and waiting. He'd sensed _something_ several minutes prior, something that wasn't his wards. He'd have to take off Alec's ring soon, but not yet; there was at least one anticipated visitor he could leave it on for and there was really no one else that would be tripping that sense of _something._

As he watched, Jace trudge into view, making his way along the sidewalk, shoulders hunched against the cold winter wind. It was just a whisper thin tendril, likely sneaking through by way of Magnus' strengthened bond with Alec, but it was definitely there.

Magnus still didn't actually know what he'd done the night before, just that it had been considerably more than he had planned. He'd already consulted Cat about it. Technically anyway. He'd at least mentioned it when he called her to shriek about the engagement as soon as Alec left the loft.

(Not telling anyone obviously didn't include Cat. She'd been the one who'd pointed out Alec was sure to broach the subject soon nearly 4 months earlier. Magnus had gone through roughly fifty stages of nerves, doubt, exultation, and anticipation in the weeks since.)

She hadn't even hung up before portaling in to shriek about the engagement with him in person and he'd forgotten all about bringing the proto-bond up again. The goal of strengthening said proto-bond seemed to have been achieved at least, but he wasn't sure if the actual anchoring aspect was any greater considering it needed to go two ways to pull the parabatai apart. It wouldn't hurt anything in the meantime regardless.

Down at street level, Jace crossed towards the building and disappeared under the projection of the loft's balcony. The wards excitedly chimed his arrival the moment he was within their boundary and Magnus rolled his eyes. What on Earth had he done when he'd set them? These days they had a list of favorites, all with their own notifications, and they were audible to virtually _everyone_. It was like having custom ring tones for his most frequent visitors. Jace's arrivals they were always excited about for reasons Magnus had yet to fathom. Perhaps the wards felt their defensive capabilities were being under utilized considering the potential for utter disaster chased him like a wolf chasing a rabbit.

The sense of Jace grew stronger as he ascended the stairwell and by the time he was through the open door and into the lounge, Magnus could tell that he was beat up and still had a hangover. Turning around offered visual confirmation of the external damage including busted knuckles on both hands and the start of a dark, bruised halo around one golden eye. The usual Shadowhunter uniform of all black just made him look paler and the wounds more stark. "You're in a state," Magnus observed.

"Izzy said we should get in a sparring session before my week's imprisonment started and I thought that sounded like a good idea." He looked at Magnus with a hang dog expression like he fully understood the stupidity of that thought in hindsight.

"Did you think she'd take it easy on you because of the hangover?" Magnus asked, genuinely curious. He had to have punched the floor or a column more than once, so she'd been moving faster and possibly over balancing him. The black eye meant she'd gotten through his guard at least once and not pulled the hit.

"No, I know better than that from experience. The only thing that's worse is when _she_ has a hangover. Never, ever spar with Izzy when she has a hangover."

"I don't plan to. You could have at least healed your wounds. You have an iratze, for pity's sake. You don't even need a stele."

Jace rubbed at his eyes and winced when he put pressure on the bruising. "I've used an iratze this morning. More than once. They only fix so much. Especially when you're really, really dehydrated from drinking as much as Clary and I did last night."

Magnus laughed at him as he summoned some hangover cure to hand. "It couldn't have been too much," he said as he walked over to hand Jace the uncapped vial of shimmering purple liquid, "since you have no tolerance to speak of. Here, take this. It'll at least cure the hangover. As it is, you're surely giving Alec a headache."

Jace immediately downed the contents and then briefly looked like he regretted everything in his life that had led to that moment. Magnus knew Jace had virtually no sense of self-preservation, but sometimes it was incredible to see the lack of it in action.

"Oh my god," Jace finally managed to wheeze out as he doubled over.

Magnus smiled. "It sparkles to distract you from the fact it tastes absolutely vile and kicks like a mule. Give it a minute."

While Jace was recovering, it occurred to Magnus to pull out his phone and text Alec. **_Sorry, should have warned you. But your headache should be better soon._**

It was a couple of minutes later before Alec texted back: **_DEFINITELY WARN ME ABOUT HANGOVER CURE MAGNUS_ **

Oops. On the bright side, Jace was starting to look a lot better and he'd apparently activated his iratze again given how the swelling on his face had started to recede. His eyes were also blue-green again; either Alec had gotten irritated and made the effort to block him out or Jace had remembered he was making Alec suffer along with him. Once Jace fully had his breath back, Magnus handed him a glass of water. "How much backlash is Alec going to get?"

"For the engagement?" Jace studied the glass suspiciously. "Is this actually water?"

" _Now_ you ask questions. It's that or vodka."

Jace shrugged. "Either works." He took a cautious sip and relaxed once he'd determined it was, indeed, water. "When it comes to Alec, Alicante society is split into three groups. The first group will use it against him, but it doesn't matter — they'll turn anything into a weapon against him because he's a Lightwood. Me they don't dare insult directly, not since the Herondale thing came out, but Alec they'll rip to shreds."

"You're the Inquisitor's presumed dead grandson. He's an easy target, relatively speaking."

"Yeah, basically." He scowled. "He's my parabatai and I'm literally _right there_ and they still think—" He cut himself off and shook his head. "Anyway, he does have a handful of actual allies, too, and they're the second group. Most of them will even admit it in mixed company. The third group is all the people still hoping he'll come to his senses. It's a lot harder to guess how they're going to fall once he's officially off the market."

That really shouldn't have surprised Magnus, but being out for over two years and living with Magnus wasn't enough of a statement? "Come to his senses about being gay or about dating a warlock?"

"Either or both, depending. The Lightwoods may be one step up from disgraced, but he's still the eldest of an old family and he's also very rich and very pretty. In the space of a four hour social event, in between all the usual insinuations and insults, he had three separate conversations that were basically disguised offers of their daughter's hand in marriage. Plus one son, which, admittedly, I did not see coming."

"Did he notice the proposals?" Magnus was betting the answer was no.

"Oh yeah." Jace took a long drink of his water. "He's been running from those for over a decade. He's really good at spotting them."

Over a— "He's 25!"

Jace, obviously considering that statement a non sequitur, looked confused. "Yes?"

 _Nephilim._ Magnus just shook his head and gestured for Jace to keep going.

"He was a lot more focused on the fact they were insulting you in the process, either blatantly or just by implication. Which he took very, very personally."

Magnus' mouth twisted up in a wry smile. He'd heard plenty of the choicer nephilim insults for him before. Alec had been there for it a time or two, which was why Magnus had a very good idea how Alec had reacted.

"Alec's not worried about the social backlash. If you're thinking that's why he's promoting Clary, he has plenty of other reasons. For one thing, the Clave's usually only pissed at one of them at a time, so they'll be able to tag team the Council pretty effectively as co-heads. Mostly, though, he wants Max out of Alicante and this lets him do it." Jace absently reached his free hand out, forward and a little off to the side — Magnus estimated it was about the height difference of something on the surface of the desk if Alec were sitting in his chair. He saw the motion register with Jace right before he yanked his hand back and slid it safely into his pants pocket.

"Two birds with one stone?" Magnus asked, politely ignoring the slip.

Jace doggedly drained the fully half a glass still left before he answered. "And he thinks he can do more good if he's not bogged down with all the little stuff. He's not wrong. He has enough political influence now he can sway opinions if he can pick and choose his battles, he's just always tied up in administration. He and Clary fight on the details, but they agree on the general direction of things, so he's not worried about that." He shrugged. "Alec's not going anywhere. He's just giving up the tedious stuff. To tell the truth, between the one-two punch of Clary and Alec, I _almost_ feel sorry for the Council." His smirk bore a strong resemblance to Alec's evil grin of mischief Magnus had seen earlier in the morning.

It did all make sense at any rate, and Magnus felt like it filled in the pieces he'd been missing when Alec had first explained it. Jace, however, was probably going to be considerably more dismayed once he realized that Clary was both better at delegating tasks — to, say, the assistant head of the Institute — and also far less inclined to let him get away with things that Alec let slide. Let alone how Alec and Clary would be perfectly positioned to gang up on him. This really _was_ going to be entertaining.

He refilled Jace's glass. "Go get cleaned up and drink that one, too. Cat, Luke, and Raphael will all be here shortly."

While Jace showered, Magnus went to make tea. As he was putting tea pot and cups — one with blood in it — on a tray, he heard a portal open. It was inside the wards and not the sound of Clary's portal rune, so Cat had obviously arrived for the second time of the day. Just as he walked back into the lounge, the wards chimed the arrival of Luke and Raphael.

She grinned at the two distinct melodies, one shifted a key off its usual to make the pair more harmonious. "You're right. They're definitely amusing."

"Amusing was not the word I used," he said levelly.

Jace emerged still damp, in the spare clothes he kept at the loft, and looking considerably better than he had when he'd arrived. He'd obviously heard the chimes as he detoured to the foyer to get the door even though it was, of course, already standing open.

Raphael came into the lounge looking particularly dressy; Magnus could always count on him to add to the decor, at least. Then Luke walked in and said, "I see you've sobered up. I thought that was going to take at least a week."

Jace looked over at Magnus and raised his eyebrows. Damnit, Luke. Magnus just rolled his eyes.

He'd had his 'Alec Might Be(!!) — Or Might Not Be(?!) — Immortal(??)' breakdown while Alec and Jace were in Alicante. Magnus had gotten very drunk and somehow that had led to having a lot of very messy feelings all over Luke. He only remembered half of it, but he was fairly sure it hadn't been his finest moment. What he did remember was Luke being very patient and understanding while Magnus had rambled about the joy and terror of love and the impossible perfection of Alec's soul. Or possibly Alec's ass. Maybe both. He wasn't clear on that part.

In hindsight, Luke probably should have been drinking for that conversation, too, given the other people involved. Regardless, Magnus had woken up in his own bed with only a fraction of the hangover he should have had, so Luke must have poured a considerable amount of water down him at some point.

Cat had called after her overnight shift to check in on him and to ask very seriously if she should bring over some healing guinea pigs. Magnus had hung up on her. One of these centuries she was going to forget that incident. Then, because she was a good friend, she'd come over later in the day to make sure he wasn't dead. Metaphorically speaking. He'd had a much more sober breakdown while she petted his hair and made understanding noises.

Magnus sat the tray on the coffee table and poured the tea. "Please have a seat everyone," he said as he handed a cup and saucer to Cat. Jace had sat on the couch and Luke joined him, both of them accepting tea, then Magnus warmed the cup of blood and handed it to Raphael, who'd settled in a chair. As Magnus was sitting down with his own tea, he realized Jace was absently spinning something invisible through his fingers. It was a unique manifestation of the bleed over considering it was Jace's habit to begin with.

"So are you going to tell us why we've been summoned to the High Warlock's lair?" Raphael asked.

Always so impatient. "Can't I just want to have some nice conversation?"

"You can," Cat agreed pleasantly. "This, however, was not a casual invitation. It was a formal request."

"Yeah, Raph even wore a formal jacket," Luke said.

Raphael sipped his blood and narrowed his eyes at Luke as if deciding whether to be insulted by that or not.

This time it was Cat that asked. "Why did you call for us, Magnus?"

"Fine, we'll completely skip over the pleasantries," Magnus conceded with admittedly little grace. There was supposed to be a _rhythm_ to these things. "There have been developments in regards to Alec and Jace's parabatai bond. Clary's had an angelic vision."

Raphael rolled his eyes. "Oh, that's reassuring."

"The vision gave them a way to formally anchor the bond. It also confirmed—" Magnus' tea cup clinked down on the saucer abruptly. He was happy about it, he was over the _moon_ about it, but it was still so _much_ and it kept hitting him between the eyes all over again.

Jace frowned at him. "Stop that."

Stop—? Jace made a vague gesture towards his own head and it suddenly dawned on Magnus that the sense of Jace's mood that he couldn't block out was _going both ways._ Magnus looked Jace dead in the eye and hoped that he could at least extrapolate how extensively Magnus was mentally swearing in Enochian even if he couldn't hear it word for word. Jace didn't bat an eye, but that wasn't definitive either way.

Cat finished Magnus' sentence for him. "It further confirmed their immortality."

Jace looked over at her and said absentmindedly, "Yeah, you're looking at the wrong patrol schedule."

Raphael didn't say anything, but he did go very still. Luke turned toward Jace and frowned, then he looked at Magnus.

"Try again, Jace," Magnus said, lifting his cup back up and sipping at his tea with deliberate calm.

Jace looked back at Magnus. "Try what again?"

Shifting cup and saucer to one hand, Magnus pulled out his phone and texted Alec: **_Try speaking again_ **

It must have gotten through by way of Alec; Jace didn't tense up, but Magnus could feel there was a well worn and heavy dismay sitting in the back of Jace's throat. Magnus didn't want to be feeling it. He was, in fact, trying to shut out the tendrils in the back of his brain that had been gradually growing to a continuous, low level information crawl, but he wasn't having much luck so far.

Raphael, thankfully, returned to the matter at hand without comment. "How much do you trust this vision?" he asked in his position as perpetual cynic.

"Biscuit was certain," Magnus said lightly.

"I lost people to the soul sword, Magnus."

Magnus could feel Jace's internal cringe like a pressure in his chest. Luke either guessed or, being a werewolf with an unfortunate sense of smell, could interpret something of the same: he dropped his arm along the back of the couch, his palm falling to rest against the back of Jace's shoulder. Thankfully it worked enough to blunt the edges and the pressure Magnus was feeling eased a bit.

"The vision as interpreted by Clary," he answered, "showed my being bonded to Alec and Clary being bonded to Jace."

"Romantic bonds pulling back from the center?" Luke asked.

"Or the balance of Heaven and Hell," Raphael offered.

"It's possibly both," Magnus admitted.

Cat lifted her eyebrows. "Or it could be because Clary's power is balancing your own."

Luke looked at him with a surprised expression.

Magnus grimaced and nodded. "Or that. She can circumvent my wards on the Institute regardless of what I do specifically to prevent it and, honestly, that's no mean feat. I don't know how much of it is latent power from the angel blood she was dosed with and how much is Ithuriel's meddling, but the fact is, she has an impressive power base even if she can't easily access it." Which was a problem they were going to have to deal with sooner or later, especially considering the potential push-pull forces of a power alliance and how she'd never had the chance to learn to properly control it.

Luke leaned forward and sat his cup and saucer on the table, then propped his elbows on his knees. "Are we talking marriage runes?"

Jace, who'd just finally relaxed again, froze suddenly with his cup halfway to his mouth as a whole new alarm started going off in his brain. Magnus was going to get mental whiplash from all the emotional shifts at this rate. He had enough reasons of his own to panic, he didn't need Jace's too.

"Luke, I would hope I wouldn't be the one telling you about this if that were the case. These are not marriage runes but, from what we can tell, they represent an immortal binding. Which would make them much more permanent than Shadowhunter marriage runes."

Magnus could very clearly feel it dawning on Jace what exactly he was getting into. Magnus took pity on him, mostly because the confused panic that was buzzing in the back of his brain was irritating. "To be fair, we're already in the middle of it. This will merely stabilize what's already happened."

Jace, thank _everything,_ finally, forcibly got himself under control. He cleared his throat, sat forward to put his own cup and saucer on the coffee table, and said, "It's a new rune from Ithuriel. Clary called it _Alliance_."

Magnus relocated the paper with the rune on it to the coffee table and Luke picked it up, frowning. "Magnus, you're going to be the live test case for inscribing an untried rune on a Downworlder."

"Our options are otherwise non-existent," Magnus said, "and time is of the essence."

Raphael gave a pointed cough. "The complete lack of caution involved in no way appeals to Magnus Bane's impetuous tendencies."

"Full speed ahead and damn the consequences," Luke said, looking up with a grin.

Raphael saluted him with the teacup and a smirk even as Cat laughed.

Magnus rolled his eyes and couldn't help a small smile, but then he sobered. "Should anything go wrong, Cat is set to be my successor until someone can be appointed."

"For the third or fourth time, Magnus," Cat said, "nothing's going to go wrong."

Raphael shook his head. "I'm continually baffled by your optimism considering you've known him for centuries."

"Wrong is subjective."

"I have literally never known one of Magnus' projects to go according to plan. There's always a monkey wrench."

"It's rare you go into situation knowing every possibility or parameter. You have to be adaptable," she argued.

"Raphael, you have been both the project in question _and_ the monkey wrench," Magnus pointed out. "More than once."

"There's something else," Luke guessed. "About the ceremony, I mean."

"Yes," Magnus acknowledged. "It calls for four witnesses, two Shadowhunters and two Downworlders. I spoke with Clary just a short while ago and, Luke, you should expect a call later."

"Magnus, I'm a Downworlder but I still have nephilim blood even if I'm not a Shadowhunter. How would I even count?"

Clary had the same question so Magnus was ready for it. "Witnesses are more about ties to the people involved and perception rather than strict divisions."

"We're applying the rules of Downworld magic to angelic ceremonies now?" Raphael asked.

Magnus looked over at him for a moment, then at Jace. "Witchlight, please."

Jace dug the inevitable sliver of witchlight out of a pocket and tossed it to him. Cat and Jace both already knew what it was going to do and didn't even blink when Magnus lit it up like a beacon, the stone throwing off a deep red glow.

Raphael frowned in confusion but Luke looked shocked. "Magnus, that's impossible. I can't even light up a witchlight anymore."

"I have an interesting pedigree," Magnus said dryly.

Good Catholic boy that he was, Raphael realized what Magnus meant before Luke did. Surprised comprehension dawned on his face.

"My point is, we perhaps envision greater differences between the factions in the Shadow World than actually exist. Witnesses are a common factor, if rarely codified, but they always lean most heavily on emotional investment rather than physical fact. For example, a requirement for a familial witness will be strongest among chosen family or with a familial type relationship rather than estranged blood relations."

Raphael sighed. "I'm being drug into this mess, aren't I?"

"Well, asking you in private probably would have been more polite, but since you've brought it up." Raphael gave him an exasperated look. Yes, Magnus did know he'd agree, at least in part because Raphael believed there should be one level headed skeptic present. Magnus hadn't intended to ambush him with both Luke and Jace in the room, though.

He and Clary had settled on familial relationships being the safest route and easily enough fulfilled when he'd spoken to her earlier. Luke was the obvious choice for her as were Max and Izzy for Alec and Jace. For Magnus, Raphael and Cat were the obvious candidates, but Raphael, so often referred to as Magnus' son, was the better choice over Cat, who had always worn the title of friend. (Someone had once referred to her as Alec's sister-in-law and, with complete authority, Alec had responded, "No, she and Magnus don't fight nearly enough to be brother and sister." Izzy had overheard and rolled her eyes.) Magnus was also far more comfortable having his emergency successor outside the containment pattern.

"Are you seeking permission from the Council before going forward?" Luke asked Jace.

"Yes," Magnus answered. "Everything will go smoother with their approval."

"And the Inquisitor's less likely to order us put down as a danger to others," Jace added.

Cat raised one eyebrow. "We are talking about your grandmother, right?"

"Sparing me alone would actually be worse, thanks." Jace said. "At the very least, they'd try to break the bond by force." His eyes spun gold briefly, like he needed to check and make sure his parabatai was still there.

"Maryse and Isabelle will present the alliance ceremony to the Inquisitor later this afternoon," Magnus said. "That will presumably trigger an emergency council meeting. Regardless, there will be an eight day deadline that's non-negotiable."

"What are the chances this is all going to go to Hell?" Raphael asked.

"Do you mean the Council's approval, the ceremony, or literally? Because I'd say 50/50 on the first two and I'm really hoping not the latter."

Raphael gave him an exasperated look. "I was considering the possibility of having to help the four of you escape from the Institute's cells and flee the Clave while under a death sentence all because you openly defied the Council."

"I can break myself out of the Institute's cells, thank you." Magnus had made sure of it after the last time, although it would be very tricky if he weren't himself. "Even if I couldn't," he sighed, "I've yet to find wards that will hold Clary."

"None of that is as reassuring as you think it is."

"Why are you so worried about this? Izzy would _hand you the keys."_

"Still not— Oh, come on. She'd be in there with you."

"He's right," Jace said to Magnus, "but the Inquisitor would probably overlook Max. He's had four censures in the last three months in Alicante and they still think he's cute and biddable."

Magnus found that statement utterly baffling. "Has Max _ever_ been biddable?"

Jace shook his head. "No, he's just good at obnoxiously charming when he wants to be."

"Are you sure he's not a blood relation of yours?" Raphael asked.

Jace smirked at him.

"Getting back on topic," Luke interrupted, "let's operate on the theory no one is going to need to flee the Clave, which I can tell you isn't a good time. Do you feel confident about this, Magnus?"

Magnus gave that question the consideration it deserved. After all, Luke had multiple stakes at play here. Finally he said, "There are weak, wild bonds already in place. This should merely formalize and stabilize those connections. As is, it's fully logical within a magical framework. All other considerations are… psychological."

Luke nodded and sat back. "A week then."

Raphael shook his head. "I used have whole _years_ that were boring."

"Sounds terrible," Magnus mused. "Although now I'm picturing explaining to the me of a few years ago half the things I've found myself tangled up in since."

"Please," Cat scoffed. "You wouldn't be able to stop talking about the beauty of Alec's soul and past you would be ready to burn the world down for him in the first five minutes."

Luke, Jace, and Raphael all laughed.

Magnus sighed. "That's probably true."


	13. Preparations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is drama (and/or drama queens), rampant symbolism, and a bit of minor possession. Then the Institute alarm goes off.

The next morning, Magnus was attempting to iron out some details for the ceremony with Clary, but after roughly the seventh interruption in ten minutes, he ended the call and tossed his phone on the top of the kitchen island.

"It isn't always this bad," he said to Alec, who was sitting on the stool next to Magnus and finishing a leisurely breakfast.

"Not _this_ bad, but it's morning, so she's still dealing with whatever came up overnight. Plus, Izzy's not back yet and Jace and I are out of commission. Emilia and Rolan are dealing with her, Jace, and Izzy's regular duties, which they've both done before, but temporary section heads are always going to have more questions. Usually it's the little stuff no one thought to write down or mention, but it still takes up time." Alec shrugged. "Clary and I streamlined as much as we could, but today she figures out what we missed."

Magnus sighed. "Ugh. Fine, we'll go over in person, and lock the door if necessary. There are things I really need to set in motion as soon as possible for the ceremony next week."

"After my coffee." Alec had put a shirt on, but he was still in pajama pants and he had the laid back, peaceful expression of a lazy day off.

It completely belied the fact he'd woken up drenched in sweat a few hours before, an angry yell torn from his throat before he'd realized where he was. He'd wrapped himself around Magnus and shook for a little while. Magnus had stroked his hair and waited for it to pass. What had been once or twice a week was now at least once or twice a night since the trip to Alicante, regardless of Magnus right beside him, or Clary beside Jace for that matter.

Magnus leaned over to kiss Alec on the cheek. "After your coffee," he agreed, refilling both cups.

 

* * *

 

It was rapidly heading toward noon before they made it to the Institute. They were stopped five times during the walk through Ops, but Alec managed to remind four of them that they needed to take things to Clary this week. (The fifth he started to do the same, but then cracked and said, "Okay, that's too easy. Put through the order and attach a note that I approved it when you send Clary the receipt.")

They did, eventually, make it to the office.

Clary ended up using Jace as a seating arrangement again: As soon as they arrived, she sat him down in Alec's chair so he could keep a hand on her while her hands were still free for the work she was doing. Magnus wasn't sure what that work was, but it seemed to involve two tablets and a laptop along with a very large cup of coffee.

"Why are you here?" Jace asked. "The entire point of my suffering is for you to not be here."

Alec rolled his eyes. "It hasn't even been four hours."

"Oh no, I'm counting from last night. An endless seven days are stretching out in front of me, Alec."

"Are you going to be this much of a drama queen for the whole week?" Alec asked.

With Clary there, Magnus couldn't tell how antsy Jace actually was already. Regardless, he didn't do well when left alone with his own thoughts for too long these days. Magnus had a few backlogged translations that were in Jace's skill set; he'd send them over once he and Alec made it back to the loft.

Magnus turned to Clary. "I have tranquilizer. It probably won't kill him if you use it for seven days straight."

Clary looked thoughtfully up at Magnus as if giving the suggestion serious consideration.

Jace leaned around Clary to look at Alec. "You say drama queen like it's a bad thing and yet you are marrying _Magnus Bane."_

Alec sighed happily and settled all loose limbed down onto the couch. "Yes, yes I am."

"You're going to be completely obnoxious about it for the foreseeable future, aren't you?"

"Probably, yeah."

Clary brightened and started to get up, then grimaced. She settled her weight back down and just smiled at them instead. "Congratulations by the way."

"Thank you, biscuit." Magnus didn't even try to sound less smug. "Now! About the ceremony."

Soon enough, Magnus' thoughts were going a mile a minute with planning. His feet keep carrying him away, but he kept circling back to lay a hand on Alec. With Jace literally having a hand on Clary, it wasn't actually necessary, but it was an excellent excuse. "What did you wear for your first parabatai ceremony?" he asked.

Alec looked confused by the question. Honestly, how long had he been living with Magnus. “T-shirts?”

Magnus turned and stared at him.

"It wasn't a big deal!" Alec protested. "I mean, the oath was, but it wasn't about _clothes."_

Magnus leaned back so he could see around Clary and frowned at Jace. Magnus wasn't surprised that Alec, at least at that point in time, thought t-shirts were perfectly appropriate for a ceremony in which you traded out pieces of your soul. He would have expected Jace's vanity to supersede something as bland as t-shirts, though.

"Why are you—" Jace huffed. "I refuse to justify it to you." He was pointing at Alec, his hand blocked from Alec's sight by Clary's body. Hmmm. Magnus would get that story later.

"Okay, you three are the co-heads and assistant head of the Institute, biscuit especially needs to impress people, and if you think I'm going to look anything less than stunning, you are sadly mistaken."

Alec, not moving from his comfortable sprawl, said with perfect earnestness, "You're always stunning regardless of what you're wearing." There was an adorable, impish spark in his eyes.

Jace groaned. "Oh my god"

Magnus preened. "Thank you, Alexander. And while _you_ are as pretty as the day is long—"

Jace interrupted with a deep, tragic sigh.

"—color means things in angel magic and the window dressing needs to reflect that."

"The window... what?" Alec frowned and his gaze went distant, probably trying to figure out how to rig draperies over the massive bank of windows in the cloisters. Amused, Magnus leaned back against the front of the desk and gave him a minute to start calculating the supplies, equipment, and labor that would be needed.

"We're the windows, Alec," Clary explained, not looking up from the three separate screens. "He's using our clothes to make a statement that aligns with Shadowhunter symbology, thus reinforcing either the political impact of the ceremony or the actual metaphysical strength of the Alliance." She paused and looked up at Magnus briefly, as if reading the answer off of his face. "Or possibly both."

Magnus smiled. "As biscuit says. Not literal window dressings in this case." He didn't actually forget Clary was an artist. He _did_ forget the broader implications and the way she spoke symbolism like a second language. "Blue and silver-gray for the four of us, I think. Red and black for the witnesses."

Alec, with obvious relief, said, "Oh, okay."

"I get veto power," Jace grumbled.

Magnus waved him off. "I'll make clothing arrangements. You will all need measured and likely a couple of fittings." He'd pay a small fortune to make it happen in seven days, but he knew a tailor who was incredibly skilled, had a number of assistants, and owed him a favor. The tailor was also a warlock and could employ other methods as necessary. "Send Isabelle over to the loft once she returns. I'm assuming arranging the ceremonial details and the reception will fall to her."

"Yeah," Clary said, "not it. Institute to run, Council to terrify, etcetera. Can I do bodily harm to Councilor Seraiah?"

"No," Alec and Jace chorused.

"He's trying to formally object to a signed and sealed contract!"

Alec stretched out on the couch, put his feet over one arm, and smiled serenely. "How terrible for him."

"I’m only it under pain of death," Jace said. "And Alec's permanently banned from planning events after the first, and last, time."

Magnus, who'd started pacing again, stopped and turned around. "Wait, what?"

Alec scoffed. "That event turned out great."

"The event turned out great,” Jace agreed. “The planning was a nightmare no one wants to relive."

"This is a pointless argument. It's not like Izzy's going to object to organizing it."

Magnus stared at Alec, trying to picture the sheer level of Drama that must have occurred in order for that to be a Lightwood Family Mandate. And the event turned out _great?_ Who could he inflict Alec the Party Planner on just to witness the whole thing for himself?

Clary made a frustrated noise, stabbed at the tablet in her hand a final time, and muttered, "You're all assholes." Then she passed the tablet behind her back. "Here, read through my reply. See if it's politely offensive enough. Magnus, do you have any input on the containment pattern?"

"The what?" Jace asked, taking the tablet and starting to read.

"The design on the floor. Like a pentagram, or the parabatai circle in this case."

"You know it's not a real circle, right? I mean, it is, but it just shows up during the ritual."

Clary turned around and squinted at him, then she looked at Magnus doubtfully. "It's possible the vision was just marking who went where."

"That's nice," Magnus said. "Do you have it sketched yet?"

"Yes, and photos of it with me." She tapped through her cell phone and held it out to him. "I was going to send them to you."

"You know there's a design in that floor tile already, right?" Alec asked.

"For now." Magnus finished a quick first pass through the images and started back through at a slower speed. "I'll fix that on my way out."

By the time the four of them trooped to the cloisters, Magnus had already transformed what had been black and white patterned tile with golden runes into smooth, gray flagstone. Alec just sighed and scrubbed at his hair.

Magnus and Clary arranged Alec and Jace appropriately and then paced off the design, Clary taking notes and a few reference photos with her phone. The purpose of any containment pattern was to constrain power in one fashion or another, to lock it in or out, but like the window dressing of their clothes, the design would serve multiple purposes: one part utility, one part symbology. This one would be comprised of a series of circles that would serve as layers of protection for the observers from the potentially large amount of power that would be in play. The parabatai circle would be the innermost solid ring and, of course, the most important barrier. It would be centered over top where the angelic core burned several floors below. Within it would be two of what Clary called anchor points, which were broken semi-circles that would draw in excess power and redirect it back to the center. Outside the parabatai circle would be four smaller circles — one for each individual witness — and a final, outermost barrier encircling everything.

Clary had taken the layout of the circles from Ithuriel's vision, but the imagery that she'd designed for the lines was another thing all together; she'd obviously been paying attention the last couple of years to pull all of this out of nowhere in such a limited time frame. Her pentagrams had always been beautiful but this had multiple layers of symbolism and it would all work together to both sink the barriers deep into the earth and reach them halfway to the firmament. Between that and how the design as a whole was oriented to the cardinal points of the city's ley lines…

Magnus looked again at the photos Clary had sent him, mentally added in the power balances, and raised his eyebrows. "This is going to _constrain the angelic core."_

Alec and Jace's eyes went wide but Clary just studied him thoughtfully for a few moments before asking, "Is that bad?"

"Probably not." Magnus shrugged. "There's likely to be a feedback loop once we activate it, but the four of us should be adequate power sinks."

"Great," Clary said faintly.

After that, they dismissed Alec and Jace from placeholder duties and finished making minor edits to the design. Alec and Jace sprawled out in a patch of sunshine to wait, lazing like a pair of lions drowsy with the midday sun.

"I'm a little worried about using paint," Clary admitted after it was all laid out. "It's not my favorite medium and, with running the Institute most of the day and drying time, this is going to be a time crunch."

Halfway across the room, the parabatai were passing the time in conversation. The hands not cushioning their heads from the stone were occasionally waving about in lazy emphasis, creating eddies of the dust motes floating through the sunbeam. Magnus couldn't hear what they were talking about, and the mental presence that kept wandering through the back of his brain was a bit mixed up, but Alec clearly felt content.

"That's an easy problem to solve, biscuit. Use chalk."

"Chalk will smudge way too easy. I could maybe use some kind of setting spray."

Magnus shook his head. "Just mark the cloisters off limits for the meantime and call me when you have it finished. We'll set it together." He called to hand the chalk set he'd once given her to create a circle for a memory demon. "The chalks will replenish themselves. You need only return a piece to the holder and close the cover."

She opened the cover and studied the chalks for a moment, then pulled one out and held it up in the multi-colored light streaming in through the large stained glass window. "It's funny how this ceremony is such a combination of the Shadowhunters and the Downworld. An angelically dictated design drawn with warlock magic, and your magic in particular." She slid the chalk back into place and looked Magnus dead in the eye. "You're not going to let Ithuriel walk off with all of us scot-free, are you?"

Magnus had expected the importance to escape her. After all, Clary didn't often see divisions amongst the Shadow World with the same clear cut lines as those who'd grown up in it, but it was back to symbolism again. He smiled and covered her hands with his. "These chalks are a gift, freely given."

She smiled back, leaned in, and kissed his cheek. "Thank you for the means of creation, Magnus. The gift is duly accepted."

 

* * *

 

The 24 hours after that were a bit of a whirlwind that included securing the tailor's services, arranging for eight sets of measurements, approving black pants Luke and Raphael already owned, and arguing with Izzy over which of her many pairs of black shoes best fit the aesthetic. (Twenty minutes into that argument — complete with Izzy throwing shoes at Alec twice for his contributions — they'd realized they were having it because they needed a break. They'd gone to get coffee instead.) Then Magnus had turned Izzy loose on the rest of the planning before contacting Cat about some old jewelry he was sure she still had. After that, he'd approved the swatches and designs from the tailor, made sure Izzy had copies of the swatches, and forwarded a list of names to be added to the invitations. Specifically, names of Downworlders that could handle a room full of Council members without resorting to murder.

It was a short list.

Izzy had sent him back a list of calls to make in regards to sourcing decorative items, including an impressive amount of flowers for the dead of winter. (When Magnus had asked about the quantity involved, she'd just said, "Oh this is going to make an _impression_ on the out of town guests.") He'd offered to simplify things by importing said flowers and other whatnots from further afield but she'd reminded him that his primary job for the week was babysitting Alec, not portal hopping continents. So he'd started making phone calls.

Eventually he did catch a couple hours of sleep, mostly because everyone in New York stopped answering his calls between two and four a.m., but it was mid-afternoon of the next day before he really had time to breathe. He was quite happy to be spending the down time propped up in bed and petting Alec, who was asleep with his head in Magnus' lap. Magnus could have used his own nap for that matter, but he didn't dare move; the nightmares had been leaving Alec wrung out every morning and generally sleep deprived. He needed the rest.

Admittedly, Magnus was also loathe to give up the weight of Alec's upper body across his legs, the feel of Alec's hair sifting through his fingers, and sight of the perfect sweep of lashes resting lightly on his cheek. Magnus stroked his hand down the warm, sleek curve of Alec's neck. The skin was bare on this side and there was nothing to draw attention from the stretch of tendon and the small nick up near his jaw from a razor wielded while still half asleep. The touch was enough that Alec shifted and Magnus stilled, but he just nuzzled into Magnus' stomach for a moment and sighed before settling again.

Magnus was just easing his hand back down on Alec's shoulder when his phone started blaring the first few notes of his ring tone. He snatched it up and answered the call without even looking, hoping it wouldn't disturb Alec. Then he froze, suddenly realizing how dependent he'd become on caller ID.

"Magnus?"

"Biscuit! How are things on your end?"

"Everything's fine. Thank you for the translations." There was loud, frustrated swearing in the background and Magnus smirked. They _were_ in Jace's skill set, but there was also a reason Magnus had been putting them off. "We had to move to the library, but it turns out it's easier to work in here anyway. Alec may find the head office relocated by the time he gets back. It's closer to Ops, too."

Closer to Ops didn't sound like an advantage to Magnus, but she'd figure that out one way or another soon enough. For the moment, she sounded chipper. Her world was upended fairly regularly, but Clary was good at rolling with the punches and coming up swinging — usually with a weapon in hand. Still, there was something in her voice. An out-of-place hesitance maybe. "What's on your mind, biscuit?" Magnus asked.

There was a moment of silence and then she huffed out a breath and said, "Hold on." What little background noise there was grew fainter and when Clary's voice returned, it was pitched noticeably quieter. "Magnus, what happens when—" She broke off. He heard her take a deep breath before she rushed out, "Magnus, people die every day, of a thousand different things. Infection, pneumonia, car wrecks. We're not growing old but human life is _fragile_. What's going to happen when one of us dies?"

Well, it was a good question, even if her logic was distinctly mundane. It was still easy to forget how new Clary was to her own heritage. "To be quite honest, I don't know the answer to that, but if it's any comfort, you _aren't_ human and your life isn't actually all that fragile."

On the other end of the line, Clary was quiet. Perhaps a bit of a history lesson; he never quite knew what gaps they'd filled in for her and what was still missing.

"You know Raziel created the nephilim as warriors, right?" he asked and she made a noise of assent. "Bear in mind he did so to take on enemies superior to humans in a hundred different ways. The angels gave you the ability to use runes, yes, but runes aren't your only advantage and the average nephilim can endure quite a lot. It used to be that an overwhelming number of Shadowhunters died young, but it was usually due to catastrophic injuries sustained in battles against a whole host of demons, not from minor wounds or mundane diseases."

Under Magnus' hand, Alec stirred for a moment and then resettled. Even with his controls shredded down to the minimum, Alec seemed to be doing a good job of blocking Magnus out. Far better than an unanchored Jace at any rate, which could be because Magnus _was_ Alec's anchor, because he didn't have to go through Jace to do it, or because he was just plain better at it. Which meant — thankfully — Magnus wasn't getting much more than the vaguest sense of his state on a sliding scale of good to bad. At the moment Magnus could sense a kind of settled quiet as he had since Alec's breathing had evened out with sleep. Clary still hadn't said anything, but it was the kind of stillness that implied things were a lot louder in her head.

The problem with history lessons, at least in this case, was they didn't illustrate the magnitude of the situation. Magnus had known nephilim for most of his long life. He'd loathed many of them and loved a few, although none so much as the one currently draped over him like an over-sized cat. Despite all Magnus' experience, the current leaders of the New York Institute seemed to rewrite his understanding of what was possible on at least a monthly basis. Magnus threaded his fingers back through Alec's hair and broke the stretched out silence. "The thing is, the average Shadowhunter is a hardy creature but even with the immortality aside, the three of you are far from average. When J— When Lilith pushed you off that building a couple of years ago, you had no time to activate your runes and you landed badly, but between your iratze and my efforts, you were fully functional in no time. You were _broken_ , Clary. And then you weren't."

"Well, you _are_ Magnus Bane," she said in a clear attempt at levity, although he could still hear some strain in her voice.

"I'm good, but I'm not that good. No warlock is, not even Cat, and she's had a lot more experience. Healing wounds that significant usually takes time and luck, and comes with a steep physical price for everyone involved."

Alec stirred and resettled again, huffing a soft sigh against Magnus' stomach. He had his arms wrapped around Magnus' waist, the muscles straining against the sleeves of his t-shirt, and Magnus ran his fingers over the unblemished flesh where a dagger had been driven through Alec's bicep a few months ago.

"Think about it this way: you know how bad the injuries were that Alec sustained at Cynric's hands. Those injuries would have killed a mundane five times over. They were bad enough that I would have expected them to kill another nephilim, or at least left permanent, incapacitating damage and a dramatically shortened life span." Magnus flattened out his hand between Alec's shoulder blades so he could feel the reassuring thump of a steady heartbeat. "The level of healing Cat and I were able to enact was extraordinary and Alec not only lived, he was physically unscathed after a couple of days rest. We've been crediting it to Jace, but the truth is, it's more than that. Even by nephilim standards, the three of you are increasingly resilient. I don't know how much comfort it is given some of the situations you end up in, but nephilim survive, and the three of you even more so."

Clary stuttered out a quiet laugh. "Don't tell Jace. He'll find a way around it."

"I would say he should have noticed by now, but he probably thinks he's just been lucky."

Clary laughed again, the sound of it a little strained. "Probably. Thank you, Magnus, for the pep talk. So to speak."

"Give it time, biscuit. Trust me, you don't grasp it all right away."

"Was it a pep talk for you too?" she asked, because sometimes she could be annoyingly perceptive.

Magnus ran his hand through Alec's hair, watching the dark locks spring back into place. "This kind of event is obviously unprecedented in my life but I feel safe in saying it's going to be some time before I feel like I have my head wrapped around it."

"Yeah, that's a good way to put it." She sighed. "You know, that wasn't why I called you. I called about the containment pattern."

"Oh!" Magnus started to sit up, but when Alec shifted, he quickly settled back and lowered his voice again. "Did the chalks work out okay?"

"They worked fine," she said. "At least I think they did. It's just… Every line has weight. I thought with the chalk I'd be able to do this in one long overnight session, but somehow I only finished the broken anchor circles last night."

"Somehow?" Magnus asked.

"The only thing I can tell you is that Jace and I went in the cloisters and we didn't come out for four hours. The circles on the floor look like what I designed, and I was covered in chalk dust, but all I remember is the weight of the individual lines. The memories are all broken up, like some kind of montage. Jace says all he remembers is fractured light."

Ah, incomplete possession. Which was odd considering the hotline Ithuriel had set up on the two of them, but possession nonetheless. "You're sure it was your design?" he asked.

"Completely."

 _That_ was even more interesting. Was the partial consciousness they were retaining because Clary was wresting some control back from Ithuriel in pursuit of her artistic vision or was Ithuriel unable to solidify his hold on her given how the design being executed channeled a unique mix of power?

Of course, possession would also explain Alec waking up in the middle of the night and stumbling into the lounge while calling his parabatai. Magnus had still been up working and Alec had all but fallen onto the couch next to him, notably pale. Between that, Alec's soothing patter into the phone, and the tight grip he took on Magnus' hand, Magnus had assumed it was a particularly bad nightmare.

For form's sake, he asked, "The security feeds?"

"They exist! Which surprised me, but nobody can seem to see them. Your eyes slide right off the playback and the next thing you know, you've closed the file and are doing something else."

"Hmmm, it's almost certainly just Ithuriel. I would recommend you stay hydrated."

There was a long pause and then, "What?"

"It sounds like Ithuriel is engaging in a bit of minor possession. For a specific purpose in this case, which aligns with our needs, so it's nothing to worry about. It's hardly the first time he's taken control of your brain. Even minor possession can be surprisingly dehydrating, though, so drink plenty of fluids."

There was another long pause. "This is one of those times when I think maybe I just hit my head really hard on my 18th birthday and everything since has been a hallucination."

"Biscuit, if you've hallucinated half the things that have come up in the last couple of years, then I am both in awe and fear of your imagination."

"Yeah, I'm not _that_ good. Reality it is."

 

* * *

 

In the end, it took four nights for Clary to complete the design, one each for the anchor points, the parabatai circle, the four witness circles, and the outermost ring. Considering the nightly possession, Magnus had been fully prepared to wake up to a certain blond nephilim sleeping on their bedroom floor, possibly chained to his parabatai out of paranoia. That hadn't happened and Jace was at least unconscious enough to share nightmares with Alec, but it seemed unlikely Clary was getting much rest.

The sessions on all four nights had each been four hours long, regardless of how much of the design was actually involved. Whatever their intended purpose, the weighted lines of the finished design lay on the floor like a single, solid object when all was said and done. Which had given Clary an idea. When he'd shown up to help her set the lines, she'd had a suggestion, and he'd agreed it was at least worth a try. Then he'd stood back and watched her carefully push the design down into the floor like pushing a very large object into paper.

Usually when she embedded a solid object in paper, the hard lines of reality blurred out to a softer rendering in Clary's preferred paper medium of charcoal, leaving them leached of color in shades of gray. This time, though, the feathery chalk hardened into crisp lines of irregularly shaped tiles and the colors became _more_ vibrant. Magnus lifted an eyebrow. It was beautiful artwork, but he hadn't expected a mosaic.

When he looked over at her, Clary shrugged. "It was on purpose but, to be honest, I didn't think that part would work."

 

* * *

 

Late in the afternoon of day five, Magnus and Alec were working separately in the lounge, holed up in the golden warmth of late afternoon and insulated from the winter cold outside. They were both on the couch, Magnus curled up at one end and Alec sitting opposite him with a Shadowhunter educational text open on his lap, taking notes, and occasionally vocalizing significant and entirely unfavorable opinions on the content. Magnus was reading a book that was far more dull than he remembered, so the wards chiming the arrival of Izzy and Max was a welcome interruption. He rose to greet them less to stand on formality and more for the excuse to stretch his legs.

Alec didn't even look up, but the visit wasn't a surprise. Max had been due to return from Idris and standard procedure meant a requisite report to the Head of the Institute on what he'd learned. It should have been Clary given Alec's "vacation", but Izzy had texted Alec that she was bringing Max over to debrief to his commanding officer instead. _Why_ had an obvious answer as soon as they walked in: Max looked exhausted and hollow eyed. He stopped long enough to take his boots off and then walked straight to Magnus, buried his face in Magnus' chest, and hugged him very tightly.

"Er, hello, duckling?" Magnus said, hugging him back far more gently.

Max pulled back and carefully fixed the vest and cravat Magnus was wearing which his face plant had put askew. Then he went and flopped down next to Alec on the couch, curling up with his head against Alec's thigh and, to all appearances, fell immediately asleep.

Alec just laid one hand on Max's head and kept taking notes with the other while scowling over the book.

Magnus waved to Izzy to follow him and lead the way to his workroom. "That good a trip was it?" He tossed the book he was still carrying in the general direction of things to foist off on someone else. If he didn't get rid of it, he'd just end up torturing himself by reading it again sooner or later.

Izzy grimaced. "Yeah, basically." Her bracelet stirred and Izzy lifted her wrist so it could greet a curious Shri, who'd slithered out of whatever hiding spot she'd been in and was dangling down from the nearest shelf. "His training's pretty rough right now. I mean, Shadowhunter education isn't supposed to be easy, it's about making us into soldiers, right? But it's been even harder for Max because of how everything is presented as a reinforcement of the Clave's traditional politics. Changes are happening in Alicante, but they're slow and the doctrine hasn't caught up yet."

She scritched under Shri's chin and lowered her wrist. Shri let out a forlorn little puff of smoke in farewell and disappeared back between the flask of dragon's tears and a bottle of her own crystallized smoke.

"Even if I thought some things were maybe unfair when I was Max's age," Izzy continued, "I didn't understand how bad it was. Alec, Jace, and I were in New York way more than Max because we had Hodge. I mean, it wasn't easier; we had Hodge and Mom sharing commanding officer duties." Magnus shuddered at the thought and Izzy nodded. "Yes, exactly. We still went to Alicante for most of the training runs and tests, but we were a lot more isolated — both from Shadowhunter society in general and from the Downworld. Max has had a very different experience the last couple of years than we did," she shrugged, "and he's a Lightwood."

"Ah, he _has_ been catching grief for his name, then."

Izzy shook her head. "No, I mean he's a _Lightwood._ He's ours. His loyalty is, first and foremost, to family. He's not only watched all the ways Alec has changed the last couple of years and started taking it as holy writ, there's also the fact _you're_ his family. To be honest, I'm surprised he hasn't gotten in more fights over you than he has. I suspect he's getting revenge in more subtle ways."

Fights over— Magnus stared at her.

"Didn't you realize he'd claimed you?" she asked with a smile. "We all did sooner or later. You've been an unofficial member of the family for quite a while now, Magnus. Welcome to being a Lightwood."

At that point, Magnus' mouth started working without input from his brain. "We were thinking Lightwood-Bane actually." Then he realized what he'd just done and winced.

"Lightwood-Bane!" She nodded. "I like it."

"You already knew," Magnus said with a sigh of relief.

"Of course I knew! Why do you think I welcomed you 'more officially' to the family the other morning?"

Wait, _what?_ "I thought you meant the alliance!" Magnus exclaimed. "Alec wasn't even planning on asking that night, how could you know about it?!"

She rolled her eyes. "Magnus, we were both sitting right there when Jace told him he needed to quit procrastinating, suck up his nerves, and just ask."

Magnus was absolutely certain he had heard no such exchange. Alec and Jace _had_ been communicating something not long before Alec had proposed, though. "Are you talking about after Clary's vision?"

"Yes! I mean, I get the sense the way they pass information through the bond is more complicated than just words, but that was obviously what they were talking about."

"Oh, obviously." He didn't know whether to chalk that ridiculousness up to Shadowhunters, Lightwoods, or just plain Izzy. He shook his head. "On another note entirely, how are you doing with this whole thing?"

"Me? Fine." She smiled. "I'm full time ceremony and reception prep right now. Jace is catastrophically bored. The translations have been helping but he's being a complete drama queen when he's not working on them. Clary's putting up with a bored Jace and going head to head with Alicante so her murderous tendencies are red-lined. Mom's jumping back and forth between here and Alicante, smoothing the way for this Alliance concept and handling that end of the planning. She's also running everything overnight with all of us on administrative stand down or committed to other things or, you know, possessed. _Slightly_ possessed according to Clary."

"Minor possession, actually, and that's all good to know, Isabelle, but nothing like what I was actually asking. As an aside, are _any_ of you getting enough sleep?"

She waved off his concern. "We're nephilim, Magnus, we were made to be weapons. It will take more than a little missed sleep to slow us down. You were asking how I'm handling Alec and Jace being immortal."

"Yes."

"I'm doing fine with that, too," she said with a shrug, "but I've had a little longer to get used to it than the rest of you have. It's funny, actually, but Simon and I talked about it before— Well, before all this with Alec, Jace, and Clary." Magnus knew Simon's feelings on immortality so he could guess at least half the opinions in that conversation. "My first thought when I realized that maybe they weren't aging the way they should be was _oh thank god it's not me._ Then I felt like a terrible person."

"That hardly makes you—" Magnus started to protest, but Izzy held up a hand and he fell silent.

"They're my— I don't know, Magnus, 'brothers' doesn't feel like it cuts it here. Other people have brothers. They're _mine._ The world has to go through me to get to them, damnit, and my first thought—" She looked away, blinking back the sudden wetness in her eyes. Magnus waited while she regained her composure. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them and looked back at him. "If it were just one or the other of them, if it weren't for you, I would probably feel differently. As it is… I'm not going to lie and say I'm a hundred percent okay with how I'm not going to be here to watch their backs, but I trust you and Clary to do it for me. And I have to admit that I'm glad I'm still more human than angel."

Magnus opened his arms and she stepped into them, hiding her face in his neck. "Don't cry on my vest, Isabelle. It's silk."

She started laughing. "I wouldn't _dream—"_

She was interrupted by her cell phone shrieking the Institute alarm and at least three text messages.


	14. The Wild Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shadowhunters love a good demon hunt. Magnus would really rather be at home, but it ends up being a good thing he's not.

There was the sound of Alec scrambling from the lounge, probably remembering he'd left his phone in the kitchen. Izzy pulled out her own phone, glanced at the screen, and immediately yelled toward the lounge, "ALEC! Wake up Max! Grab your bow!!" Her whip was already stretching out and slithering down into her hand. "Magnus, can you portal us back to the Institute?" she asked urgently. Then, without actually waiting for an answer, she spun on her heels and ran toward the front door.

Magnus followed. "Yes, of course, but what—"

"What's up?" Alec asked, his bow and quiver already next to him as he yanked his boots on.

Max stumbled into the foyer, still blinking sleep out of his eyes, and attempted to pull his own boots on one handed while drawing a stamina rune on his forearm with the other.

Izzy, with a fierce grin, said, _"gnat demons"_ and disappeared through the portal Magnus had just spun open.

Alec and Max's faces both lit up and they dove through after her with Alec's laces only half tied and Max wearing one boot while carrying the other.

Magnus groaned, took a moment to swear in three different languages, then followed them through.

 

* * *

 

Gnat demons were, largely, pests. They were fast, a bit bitey, and the largest were twice the size of a hand, but individuals were usually an annoyance rather than a serious threat. Granted, some seelies were actually allergic to their bites and the wolves reported they tasted terrible, but mostly they were just obnoxious. The problem was that they never, ever came as individuals — they came as swarms and reproduced rapidly in the Earthly dimension. The only way to control them was immediate and total extermination. Large packs of the little bastards periodically found their way in, split up, and began multiplying. The local Shadowhunter institute responded to a sighting by immediately going to a high alert that had every last soldier reporting for duty.

On the bright side — so to speak — gnat demons were attracted to nephilim. Magnus theorized it was a pheromone thing, particularly considering they _always_ concentrated in areas with significant nephilim populations no matter where they originally emerged. Regardless, packs drew them out better than lone hunters, so the Shadowhunters went out as one group, found the pockets of gnat demons, and then it was all out warfare until the Shadowhunters were the only ones left standing. Given the numbers involved, a single Shadowhunter would end up killing hundreds before the threat was completely neutralized.

In practice, this meant that during these events the Shadowhunters were running riot through the city and the Downworld got the hell out of the way. Certainly the absolute _last_ place any sensible Downworlder would be on a god forsaken night when there was an active infestation of gnat demons was in the middle of the local Institute's Ops room.

Amid the less-controlled-than-usual chaos in that very location, Magnus reflected he'd made some very questionable choices in his life that had lead to this situation. The worst part was there wasn't a single one he'd change. He sighed and pulled out his phone to send a mass text to all his Downworld contacts like a tornado siren warning everyone to take cover.

Next to him, Alec was virtually vibrating in place. It was somewhat marring his attempt to look responsible and in control, but no one else was going to notice anyway. Jace had already skidded up and thrown a sword in a thigh holster at Alec before finishing buckling on his own weapons. Max had been right behind him wearing a dagger at each shoulder and carrying a second, very full quiver for Alec along with more arrows for the first. Shortly thereafter, Izzy reappeared, bristling with at least three additional weapons besides her whip.

When Maryse strode up a few moments later, it was as an island of relative calm. She visually cataloged everyone's preparedness and obvious weapons in turn, then got to Magnus and paused. After a moment, she pointedly raised one eyebrow, a grin twitching at the corners of her mouth. Magnus rolled his eyes but did vaguely straighten up out of his sulk.

She nodded at him and, without looking, reached over and absently tugged Max's shirt loose from where it was folded up under his shoulder harness. To the attendant hovering at her heels, she said, "Finnegan, transmitter please." Finnegan immediately all but evaporated off somewhere and she asked, "Everyone have what they need? Alec, do you have enough arrows for this?"

That might have been sarcasm, but nobody seemed to be in their right minds at the moment, so it might have been a legitimate question.

"Yeah, I'm goo— I can… stay." He sounded like the words were being drug out of him by a pack of wild horses. Or gnat demons, in this case. "If you need me here in Ops I can, uh, stay." Magnus could actually feel the absolute dismay even the idea of it caused him.

Jace made a sound of complete outrage.

 _"You_ are still on voluntary administrative stand down," Maryse said dryly. "I can handle Ops, Alec. Please make my life easier and go with everyone else."

Alec bared his teeth in what might have been a grin and started bouncing on his toes. Magnus could feel his surge of excitement not only rebounding but climbing even higher. Then, abruptly, his sense of Alec slid sideways and— _oh._ Across from them, Jace's eyes turned bright gold and Magnus briefly had to find his own center as the parabatai let their walls fall and the bond rise.

The runner returned and passed Maryse something small. She walked over and hooked a bit of electronics over one of Magnus' ears, fingers quickly settling a small speaker in place. "Testing," said a voice in his ear. Magnus blinked.

Clary appeared suddenly on the mezzanine, radiating power like an avenging angel. There was a crackling energy draped around her like a mantle and even from a couple dozen feet away he could see her eyes were shining angel gold; she might as well have had wings for as inhuman as she appeared. Every Shadowhunter in the room, including Maryse, simultaneously turned toward her and fell into parade rest, their collective laser focus nearly palpable.

Clary didn't bother with an inspirational speech, but it was hardly necessary in this situation. Even the Ops personnel staying behind were ready to start climbing the walls. "Is everyone ready?" she asked gleefully.

 _"Yes, ma'am!"_ the room chorused.

She smiled, sharp and feral. "Then follow me." A path instantly cleared for her between the mezzanine and the front door. She eschewed the stairs entirely, leapt the railing, and all but disappeared with only a blur of movement marking her passage through the crowd. The parabatai were instantly at her heels and the rest of the room streamed out behind them, surging into the night with a unified battle cry.

Magnus smiled brightly and started to turn back to Maryse. "Well, since I'm not needed—" The voice in his ear briskly rattled off an address. Magnus hesitated, then sighed, rubbed at a temple with one hand, and opened a portal with the other.

 

* * *

 

Several hours later, Magnus, with a hot toddy in hand, stood on a rooftop within the bubble of a personal ward and "supervised" as the pack of Shadowhunters streamed into the intersection where the next pocket of gnat demons had concentrated. The voice reading off addresses in his ear would have let him arrive at each successive location via portal ahead of the Shadowhunters, but he was trying to to figure out how they were hunting down their prey. He'd summoned up a carpet for the trips between locations in order to keep up with their speed runes, but a couple hours into the festivities, he was no closer to a workable theory. Clary was unequivocally leading the charge although she clearly wasn't wearing anything in her ear and she wasn't using any tracking runes. There wasn't even any consultation on the issue — one pocket vanquished, the entire pack of them followed her straight to the next with only the briefest pauses for her to reorient.

That Clary had somehow developed a sixth sense for demon pests wouldn't even be a surprise, but the lack of communication remained perplexing. The majority of the group were bunched up around her, but at least a dozen were up high, making their way along the rooftops when they could. Those hunters were frequently out of sight of the main group they were pacing but Magnus, with his superior vantage point, had watched them all pause in concert as Clary readjusted. How _they_ had all developed a sixth sense for _Clary_ was a considerably stranger mystery.

Thankfully, the streets — and rooftops — were at least dry, even if there was no escaping the cold. If one weren't a nephilim anyway; the hunters didn't seem to notice the bitter temperatures despite every last one of them being significantly under dressed for the conditions. Magnus, however, was noticing it just fine and he'd summoned himself a thick wool coat and warm hat and gloves along with the toddy.

A sudden rush of footsteps behind Magnus preceded Kit Branwell running past him and right off the edge of the roof to do an entirely unnecessary front flip down into the rising melee. Without hesitation, he fell straight into a boiling mass of thirty or so soldiers and at least several hundred gnat demons.

 _"Shadowhunters,"_ Magnus muttered, letting his personal ward go. He'd discovered the hard way that he'd been spending enough up close and personal time with nephilim to attract the focused attention of the demons. Fortunately, he was far less interesting when there was a cadre of the real thing nearby.

Down on the streets below, a thick, golden vapor of angel magic had arrived with the hunters. It had been radiating from them ever since they'd left the Institute, which Magnus found odd, but he had no basis for comparison. Like most sensible Downworlders, he'd always locked his wards up tight on these nights. Of course, _sensible_ was the key term.

As if illustrating a cautionary tale, yelping and growls had been added to the battle soundtrack; the werewolf caught up in the forward rush a few streets back clearly wasn't a willing volunteer. Magnus hadn't gotten a particularly good look, but he was pretty sure he recognized this one and he was definitely going to have words with her later about respecting the urgency of his warnings. In the meantime, a full eight hunters had arrayed themselves tight around her as a living shield, two of which were the parabatai, so at least she was in no danger of being overwhelmed by a swarm.

Magnus was just settling back and taking a sip from his glass when Raphael suddenly appeared next to him. Magnus turned and stared at him. "I raised you better than this," he said, near shouting in order to be heard over the battle cries, the multitude of high pitched shrieks of wounded and dying demons, and the screeches of adamas weapons impacting unyielding metal, brick, and asphalt.

"My mother raised me. You are just my eternal penance. Which is how I knew that with the nephilim on the rampage, you'd be in the middle of it."

"As you can see, I most certainly am not." Magnus gestured towards the intersection below with his glass. "The middle is clear over there."

"I do see that. Any regrets yet?" Raphael, probably feeling the cold even more keenly than Magnus, flipped up the collar of his coat and drew it tighter around himself. "Or are you just looking forward to everyone thinking you're the responsible one by comparison?"

Magnus narrowed his eyes at him. "I will _disown_ you."

Raphael smirked. "Not before the ceremony, you won't."

Fate save him from smart ass young vampires. Not that Raphael was so young these days. He turned back to watching the street below. "Everyone knows Alec is the responsible one anyway."

"Normally I would agree, but he actually _is_ in the middle of that mess down there. This is utter chaos. How has no one called the police about a brawl?"

Magnus shrugged. "I have no idea. Perhaps it's all that angel magic. Did you call in the clan and lock down the hotel?"

"Of course. They'll be safe until morning. Cranky, but safe."

Across the street, Max chased a couple of the pests into an alley while dodging around and almost incidentally protecting a completely oblivious mundane. Halfway up a building's fire escape in pursuit, he ended up hanging off the edge of one railing and slicing through both demons in mid-air when the things jumped. Then he launched himself off the railing, the whole assembly shaking alarmingly, flexing and twisting his body so that he landed lightly on his feet. As soon as he was on solid ground, he was off again, diving into the mass of nephilim and demons.

"You know," Raphael said, "we tend to think of the Shadowhunters as the most human of the Shadow World. Nights like this are a reminder they just pass better."

The werewolf had been herded near to the fight boundary and she dove out of the safety net, scrambling with impressive agility through the confusion in an attempt at escape. Magnus threw a ward down over her and she didn't even pause at the sudden field of blue surrounding her. Definitely Maia.

Free of the mass of bodies, if not the wash of angel magic, she scanned the rooftops until she spotted him, then hustled into the nearest alley and _jumped_. Magnus knew werewolves were capable of near vertical leaps despite their bulk, but he'd never witnessed one use it to access a fire escape and then navigate their way to a rooftop. A bit more strategic leaping and a still shifted Maia washed up next to Magnus with ears pinned back and her fur liberally matted with ichor. He let the ward go and she spat, or tried to, with her muzzle scrunched up like she had a terrible taste in her mouth. It wasn't a thing a wolf's muzzle did particularly well.

Magnus pulled the glove off his free hand to text Luke that Maia was accounted for. "I'd ask if you'd like clothes for shifting back, but you're safer as you are and they'll be on the move again soon enough. Probably best just to stick with us."

She gave a grumpy whine with an upward inflection at the end that he translated to _"what the fuck just happened??"_

He'd opened his mouth to answer when a voice to his left said, "You were caught up in a wild hunt." Magnus turned, startled, to find the Seelie Queen standing beside him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Magnus saw Maia start to slink around him, a deep growl trickling out of her throat, her hackles up. It was a touchingly protective gesture, if utterly foolish. The front edge of a dress shoe brushed against Magnus' calf — Raphael's leg blocking her way — and Maia's forward movement stopped. There wasn't an immediate, knock down, drag out, werewolf versus vampire fight happening behind him, so he assumed Maia had acquiesced to the suggestion.

"This isn't a Wild Hunt," Magnus said, for all that it was stating the obvious.

"No?" she asked. "Are you the expert then?" She knelt on the ledge, bright eyed as she watched the carnage below. "This is not _the_ Wild Hunt, but wild hunts are older than any formalized group. These little events have always been a bit feral, and this one has most certainly crossed the line."

Given there was an apex predator in a flower crown at his feet, Magnus held himself very still. A healthy respect for the danger she represented didn't stop him from arguing with her though. "A defining feature of a wild hunt is that it owes no allegiance to any faction of the Shadow World, and especially not to angels."

She laughed, which was, as always, alarming. "These are not the auspices of angels for all that it's their blood in the streets! The hunters currently running rampage through this city owe their allegiance tonight solely to the bright, leading edge that is their flame-haired Fairchild and the two fire-eyed hellhounds at her heels. Who do you think is controlling all that power?"

Magnus turned and looked back down at the battle that raged below, periodically rising and falling along the vertical boundaries. There was a _lot_ of magic flowing through the streets, warning away mundanes that were the least bit sensitive and drawing in the demons. At the near edge, Kit's head snapped up, following the movement of a gnat demon scampering loose along the building face almost directly below Magnus. Producing a small dagger from nowhere obvious, he took two quick steps and leapt up to catch hold of a narrow brick ledge with one hand. Braced impossibly between his feet and fingertips, he threw the dagger with deadly purpose at a sharp angle up the wall. The gnat demon was pinned to a bit of wood fastened to the brick building before shattering into sparks and a splash of ichor.

Then Kit's eyes flicked up and he gave Magnus a toothy grin. Magnus sucked in a surprised breath: Kit was perched less than a story beneath where Magnus stood and through the shadows he could see the bright gold shine of Kit's irises. Kit held one hand up expectantly and Magnus flicked out the magic to relocate the dagger to Kit's palm. Kit let go of the ledge and pushed off with his feet, executing a rare necessary flip back into the fray.

Magnus looked again at the mass of nephilim and demons, trying to see not what he expected to see, but what was actually happening. Clary was the easiest to discern, her hair like a beacon even with the muting effects of the street lights. The parabatai were as near to her as they had been when the hunt began and a sixth sense made it easy for Magnus to pick them out. In the gaps between bodies, he could see Alec's quivers and he frowned at how they still bristled with arrows. Alec's bow hadn't left his — their, the parabatai's — hands, and they had been shooting arrows continuously in each battleground. They certainly weren't stopping afterward to retrieve what had been used, yet he was not only still shooting non-stop, the quivers were still three-quarters full.

Magnus watched as the parabatai drew an arrow, already dark with a coating of ichor, and nocked it, even as another arrow was slotted back into one of the quivers. Alec — the parabatai — released the arrow and Magnus followed its arc. As soon as an gnat demon died on its adamas point, a Shadowhunter that Magnus didn't recognize broke free and snatched it up from where it had clattered to the sidewalk. They immediately handed it off to the nearest person in reach and then spun right back around with a sword stroke that bisected another demon. Magnus flicked a tiny bit of tracking magic at the arrow in order to follow it and then watched in astonishment as it was passed hand to hand straight back to the parabatai's quivers. It happened with no apparent discussion and regardless of the fact the parabatai were constantly moving and shifting location. The arrow was automatically routed around Izzy who, wielding her whip-as-staff in one hand and a sword in the other, had no free hands left. A few hands later and nearly to its destination, Max used it to stab a demon before passing it to the next person who slotted it back into place at Alec's back.

Magnus watched the pattern repeat over and over — the arrows flew, each retrieved by the nearest hunter and then passed in the same hand to hand manner until they were back in a quiver to be used again. This despite how the participants couldn't possibly tell where they needed to go at any given time in that mass of bodies. The entire contingent was acting as one, as if possessed of a hive mind of universal thought.

A horrifying awareness dawned and his stomach dropped. There was really only one thing that would explain that much unity, especially in this many people in a situation this chaotic, and the golden shine to Kit's eyes was a terrible clue. Magnus remembered Clary's too fierce smile at the Institute before opening the flood gates and the synchronicity of everyone's response to her presence. He had attributed it to a force of habit and training, but that's not what it had been. Not at all.

Clary had _enthralled_ every Shadowhunter in the Institute. The arrows were making their way back to Alec's quivers because Clary's archer needed arrows and _she was making sure he had them._

He realized the Seelie Queen was staring at him, apparently having decided he was the more entertaining thing at the moment. She smiled brightly when he looked down at her. "That child has no master but her own measure and I know full well how your parabatai currently stand in defiance of Alicante. If you loosed the reins tying those three to this world, they'd storm the gates of Hell tonight with the hunt at their backs." She laughed again, lightly but almost breathy with excitement, and Maia gave a low warning growl. "Or maybe heaven, if they lost their way. The wiser angels have surely locked themselves in tight until morning just the same as the Downworld."

Magnus realized she was waiting to see if it all went very wrong. He also realized that it _could._

Terrible creature that she was, she winked at him and literally disappeared, but he didn't assume she was gone from the area entirely. Not when there was still potentially a disaster to behold.

Behind him, Raphael said with noted urgency, "Magnus."

Magnus tossed his glass away to shatter elsewhere and rid himself of his gloves. His hands free, he centered himself and sent his own magic down the bond connecting him to Alec — Alec who was currently parabatai. Alec was Jace and Jace was connected to Clary twice over by anchor and angel blood, so Magnus' line to Alec was a line to Clary.

Throwing that door wide open, Magnus actually flinched back from how unexpectedly bright Clary was burning through the bond. She was like a massive bonfire, and he could see now the way she was dragging everyone with her — except, ironically, the parabatai. The three of them were tied together by other means, though, so it meant little at the moment whether the thrall had failed to latch onto them or she'd subconsciously skipped them. There was, in fact, a loop of power happening between the three of them and Magnus had a bad feeling it was only spinning things more out of control.

As for the compulsion she was exercising over the other Shadowhunters, it didn't require much for present; they _wanted_ to go the direction she was leading. Nonetheless, even if that changed, they were all locked on her as surely as a lodestar and the mass of them would overcome any individual deviation. Magnus had inadvertently been anchoring the three of them — Alec, Clary, and Jace — through his bond with Alec, keeping the magic from tearing everything apart, but it would be easy for them to slip free. Especially considering Clary was further out from his influence and at the helm of a well of magic she had little experience deliberately using or knowledge of how to control. And _control_ was the key word. With no fixed point to tie it down, there were large, irregular power fluctuations happening in the whole mess like a bomb in danger of detonating.

Magnus was going to have _words_ with Ithuriel some day.

He retrieved Alec's token from his pocket and put it on, then focused down all of his power and all of his own control and sent it out along the bond to Alec — or, rather, to the parabatai and therefore to Clary. He latched it onto them like safety line, tethering them directly to himself, then he sank his power down to the surface under his feet, grounding himself firmly to the Earthly plane.

The angel magic flashed back through the connection and Magnus set his teeth against the sudden spike of pain, but it only hurt for a moment. In less than a breath he saw Alec's token glow and then the angel magic lashed around Magnus' own power, binding to it, and holding him as tightly as he was holding Clary and the parabatai.

The last of the gnat demons in the intersection died at arrow point and the pack of Shadowhunters broke free of their loose formation. They began streaming out, blurs of movement following a streak of red leading them god knew wh—

A voice in his ear read out a new address. Oh, that was where.

"Can you hold them and move?" Raphael asked, the strain in his voice evident.

He would need to be as close as possible to maintain the connection, which meant he would have to keep up with their speed runes. He also needed his feet on surfaces tied to the ground as much as possible, which meant the carpet wouldn't work. Portals were the only solution at hand, but he was going to lose them every passage in between.

"We're about to find out," Magnus said, already wrapping the magic of the tethers around one arm and conjuring a portal with the other hand.

He followed them through the night, slipping through portal after portal between each battleground to keep up while trying not to fall too far behind or leap too far ahead. The split seconds he lost them in each passage were heart stopping, but it was a matter of seconds on the other side to re-establish the line. Thankfully, he had Raphael on one side and Maia on the other — their quick reflexes saved him more than once when he was paying more attention to the tethers than to where he placed his feet.

Clary was at the end of one tether and the other led to the parabatai who were burned clean of anything other than the hunt. There was no trace of _Alec_ and _Jace_ between them, or maybe it was more accurate to say that they were all of themselves at once: the parabatai was a single, inseparable consciousness. Alec had told him as much when the bond was even less advanced than it was now, but Magnus was rapidly gaining a new perspective on what that meant.

He also understood now why Jace had so adamantly called it a dance, although to Magnus it was more like a song as the archer of the singular parabatai kept a regular beat with the release of each arrow. The sword bearer wielded his weapon in harmonious counterpoint, showering them in a perpetual fall of sparks and a veritable rain of ichor from the dying demons as he spun in continuous motion, protecting the archer's legs and torso. The bright curves of gleaming adamas as the sword arced through air were like a pure, clean alto, the intermittent stabs an accent of dropped pitch. The archer was moving as well, shifting his feet and curving his body as needed, but he was stretched tall and unflinching as often as not, the rhythm of the arrows continuing uninterrupted.

Through the tether, Magnus could feel the draw of the bow, could see the arrows flying true, but with the movement between light and shadow and the rising and falling mass of bodies, locking on most targets was an impossible fantasy. The parabatai had instead slipped to a different level entirely. Each arrow was loosed and, in the space between release and impact, a demon appeared in its path. Much the same, they were swinging the sword before there was anything to swing at, like moving one step ahead in time.

Some similar sixth sense seemed to be keeping them close to Clary, or possibly vice versa. She was to one side of the archer as often as not, the sword bearer automatically reorienting to accommodate. Like moths to a flame, the demons were concentrating most heavily on her. Possibly on the parabatai as well, although that was harder to discern. Regardless, demons were dying on Clary's kindjals at a phenomenal rate — besides the gnat demons that made it to her on their own, multiple hunters around her were wielding a sword in one hand and using their free hand to bat more demons straight at her.

Despite Clary like a whirling dervish of death and the brutal effectiveness of the parabatai sword bearer, the sheer mass of demons meant some still made it through. Damaged and dying maybe, but nonetheless clawed and fanged and capable of doing damage of their own before exiting the earthly plane. For all that Shadowhunters were largely impervious to ichor, it stung in broken skin, and all three of their bodies were on fire with a thousand pinpricks of pain. Magnus' sense of it was like echoes of agony through the tethers, but it just seemed to be sending Clary spiraling higher. It wasn't slowing the parabatai down either, which wasn't surprising, but Magnus was a bit startled to realize they were barely even registering it. The archer, relatively still compared to chaos around him, had it the worst despite his two defensive guards. Alec's face wasn't too badly off but there was little skin on his arms untouched and Magnus could feel how the continual shower of ichor burned like acid as it mixed with the blood and dripped in a steady stream groundward.

The killing went on for still hours more. The night was growing thin and thousands of gnat demons had been banished back to the pits of hell before Max had the honor of killing the very last in the city. At that moment, the nephilim, who had been unflagging through the long, cold night, all swayed drunkenly in place and dropped straight down like their strings had been cut. Then the entire lot of them just sat there, utterly filthy with ichor and giggling.

Magnus, brutally tired as he was, let go of the metaphorical reins with relief. Clary was still throwing off power in fits and starts, but it was burning lower at least. As for the parabatai, they weren't entirely themselves yet, but he could sense the two of them like individual ghosts trying to take physical form. The bond he was sharing with Alec had grown stronger from all the power they'd been pushing through it; Magnus could feel it like a solid thing in his chest, albeit still ragged and roughly formed.

He made his way to the perimeter of the group and started checking random nephilim. The temperatures were even more bitter now in the coldest hours before the sun returned, but whether it was the activity or some other mechanism, they were all still warm to the touch and completely oblivious to the ice cold air. Even more importantly, their eyes had returned to normal; it looked like Clary had released the accidental compulsion and no one seemed worse for the wear. He did suspect that none of the Institute's field operatives were going to be good for anything for at least a full day, but that might have been the case regardless. Clary, curled up in Izzy's arms and laughing, was downright loopy on the way to what was sure to be a truly spectacular crash. Luckily the containment pattern had already been finished and the rest of the schedule they were committed to would allow for the loss of the coming day and likely the night after.

As for the parabatai, the skin on Alec's arms was all but flayed open. The damage only went deep in a few places but it was, at the very least, a larger surface area than Magnus was ready to trust an iratze with repairing neatly. He probed gently at the raw tissue to sense how far the ichor had managed to work its way in. Not surprisingly, Magnus' magic sparked up against Alec's own over-powered healing energies that were already rising to the surface. There wasn't so much as a flinch from Alec, but Alec wasn't entirely himself yet and it would seem his sense of pain was still absent.

While the more-or-less version of Alec watched with vague interest, Magnus cleaned the ichor out of the exposed tissue and healed the deepest wounds. Then he summoned a roll of bandaging with an embedded stasis spell and wrapped Alec's forearms to keep them from healing until Magnus could supervise. Alec just looked up at him with a vacant smile, his fully dilated pupils surrounded by a thin ring of gold.

Magnus dug out his phone, unlocked it, and handed it to Raphael who was hovering next to him regardless of the ichor coating his shoes and creeping up the cuffs of his pants. "Send an all clear text," Magnus rasped. He could barely get the words out for how dry and rough his throat felt from the long night in the cold air.

The Institute, of course, required no notification at all and the Ops support skeleton crew arrived in short order. Apparently there were procedures for when you had better than three dozen Shadowhunters drunk on gnat demons — efficient procedures at that and it didn't take long for them to clear the street. They absolutely took advantage of Magnus' presence, though, and he was left with not just Alec, but also Jace, Clary, Izzy, and Max. All of whom were literally dripping with ichor and high as kites.

He suspected Maryse had her hands full at the Institute and was behind the decision to leave him holding this particular bag. He was tired enough that he thought about sending her a snippy text, but it seemed like far too much effort. He didn't actually want at least three of the five out of his sight until they were entirely themselves again anyway.

While Magnus was considering his next step, Maia herded his charges to the sidewalk. They were relatively cooperative for that much, but then she had her paws full keeping them from wandering off and avoiding Max's multiple attempts to wrestle her. Fortunately, Max was too sloppy with the high to tackle her in earnest, but Maia's bared teeth and growling weren't keeping him from trying. She'd already tried taking a retaliatory nip at him and then blatantly regretted it: she'd backed off, started snarling, and tried to spit out the taste of the ichor. It still wasn't a thing a wolf's muzzle did particularly well.

Magnus sighed. Every joint and muscle ached from the metaphysical strain of pulling back against Clary and the parabatai and now he had five currently useless Shadowhunters to decontaminate and corral until they crashed. Once they crashed, he'd need to stash them where he could keep an eye on them, especially biscuit. Who knew what kind of hangover angel magic with incidental enthrallment left a person with. Plus there was the question of how hard Max was going to fall once his stamina rune — or whatever he was running on — finally wore off.

Magnus really needed to get them inside soon if nothing else since they were surely going to lose their cold protection one way or another. Not to mention the magic that had been burned between the six of them through the night: Magnus himself was going to need a small feast, let alone the five nephilim. Did demon highs give you an irresistible urge for snack foods? He should probably make sure there were plenty of those on hand too, just in case. Or, rather, he should definitely conscript someone — Luke, it was definitely going to be Luke — to acquire and deliver a very large quantity of various foods to the loft.

Raphael, a hand under one of Magnus' elbows as if suspecting he might collapse at any moment, observed the five utter disasters lying in the middle of the sidewalk and hummed thoughtfully. Magnus braced himself for whatever was coming next. "This is quite the penance you've chosen," Raphael said. "Out of curiosity, which of your multitude of sins are you atoning for?"

Magnus rolled his eyes.


	15. A Pause to Recharge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jace wakes up and discovers the Magnus Disaster Scale has hit unprecedented levels.

Jace woke up with Clary's arms around him, his nose buried in her neck, and the general sense that all was right in the world. It had been too long since he'd come up out of sleep quietly. For the last week, he'd come up swinging, yelling in fear or anger, and reaching for weapons they'd banished to the other side of the room for safety's sake. He'd been dealing with it, but Jace could admit he was tired — tired as much of dragging Alec with him into his personal hell as of the dreams themselves, tired of coming to with Clary looming over him and holding him down, her expression both exhausted and determined.

Clary dropped a little deeper in the bedding and Jace hummed, setting his teeth against her neck and gently teasing the skin there. Then a hand landed more of less on the side of his face and Alec said, "No."

Jace was suddenly more alert. "What the fuck?"

"Shhhh," Izzy said from behind Jace, petting at his hair. "Some of us are still sleeping."

Jace struggled up to one elbow regardless of Izzy's grumbled swearing and took in the room. It was one of Magnus' guest rooms, which explained both how the bed was accommodating four and a half adults and the very grumpy looking warlock sitting in a chair on the far side of Alec. Magnus was glaring at Jace over the rim of his coffee cup. Oooo, coffee.

Busy trying to figure out how he could get Magnus to magic him up coffee so he didn't have to leave the comfortable nest he was in, it took Jace a few minutes to really register Magnus' appearance. Jace had a sliding scale for how bad a situation was — or had been — based primarily on the height of Magnus' hair and how much glitter and/or jewelry he was wearing. Nowhere in that range had he accounted for the completely unprecedented situation of Magnus so rumpled he looked like he'd been in the same clothes for three days straight with his cravat half undone and the fabric of his shirt and pants discolored with large splotches of what looked like blood or ichor stains.

"You're a complete mess," Jace pointed out.

Magnus glared harder, took an aggressive sip from his cup, and said, "I hate gnat demons."

None of the answers Jace had to Magnus' statement were going to result in him getting coffee delivered to him anytime soon, so he switched targets. "Alec, I need coffee."

Alec, curled up on his side and tucked in behind Clary, had settled his arm back around her waist and looked for all intent and purposes like he'd gone right back to sleep. For a minute, Jace mourned the fact Alec and Clary got along now because a photo of it would have made for amazing blackmail. Alec opened one eye and asked, "Really? That's what you're going with?"

"You're on the outside."

Alec gave him a pitying look because morning Alec was a particular breed of asshole. It was Jace's favorite time of the day to fuck with him. "The whole bottom of the bed is open," Alec pointed out gently as if Jace were a particular breed of idiot.

"Izzy will get mad if I move," Jace said and Izzy growled behind him. "See?"

"Izzy'll get more space to stretch, get to cuddle up to Clary instead of you, and the whole room will get quieter."

Izzy, the traitor, hummed a little trill of interest back behind Jace. 

Jace hooked his chin over Clary's shoulder so he and Alec were nose to nose. He got as far as, "Alec, you swore an oath—" before Alec shoved him back down to the bed. Izzy yelped, unearthed a pillow, and managed to use it to smack Alec in the head without actually sitting up.

"Hey!" Magnus interrupted. "Before you completely revert to your ten year old selves, please check on Clary."

Jace froze with his own pillow in hand and looked over at Clary who seemed to be sleeping right on through the rapidly escalating situation. Max was still asleep back behind Izzy, too, but that was less surprising. He'd slept through an institute wide alarm once. "Okay, what am I checking for?"

"Breathing would be an excellent start."

_"What?"_ Jace immediately rose up even as Alec did the same and they rolled her so she was flat on her back. She shifted slightly — thank god — but slept on.

Izzy wriggled in under the arm Jace was braced on so she could get her own look. "Good color, breathing regular. Excellent pajamas, I approve. She seems okay from what I can tell at the moment, Magnus. What happened?"

Magnus sighed. "I've been trying to think of a good summary for hours now. The shortest version is _angelus ex machina_."

Izzy laughed. Alec twisted back to look at Magnus in confusion.

"That's not how the saying goes," Jace pointed out.

Magnus shook his head, wrapping both hands around his coffee cup. "One of these days I'm going to personally explain to Ithuriel that while he may consider the angel blooded play toys, the son of Asmodeus should not be expected to pick up after him."

Jace snorted. "As someone who's been hijacked by both heaven and hell, let me know how making demands of angels works out for you." Izzy made an amused noise and draped herself over him, using her weight to drag him back down to the bed.

Alec raised his right arm up for inspection. "Things are a little fuzzy but I do actually remember everything, at least I think I do. Most of it anyway. That was a hell of a demon run."

Jace frowned at his own hazy memory of blood and raw tissue, but Alec's arms were in pristine condition. Not that Jace could feel them himself at the moment, not without making an effort since Clary and Magnus were right there, but the movement of the tendons had no visible hitch and there was no pull to the skin as Alec flexed the arm and hand. There wasn't so much as a scratch. It wasn't the first time they'd taken damage that should have been painful to the point of incapacitation and not felt it in the moment — it was the battle mind of the parabatai — but there was usually a significant price to be paid afterward.

Alec dropped his hand and looked at Magnus. "Have you gotten any sleep?"

Magnus grimaced. "Some, but I didn't want to go too long between checks on biscuit. Which is why you two," he pointed his cup at Jace and Alec, "are on breakfast duty. I'm exhausted. Also, I need more coffee." He waved his cup imperiously. "Hop to, gentlemen."

In this case, "breakfast duty" turned out to mostly be heating up the large trays of prepared food in the fridge, cutting up some of the fruit piled on the island, and shifting the bags and boxes of snacks off to the side and out of the way. While Alec dealt with excavating the impressively full fridge and turning on the oven, Jace dug out coffee beans, turned off the basic coffee maker, and turned on the espresso machine.

"Are you planning some kind of party?" he asked Alec. Magnus was involved, so magically having enough breakfast food on hand for 20 people didn't surprise him, but the mountain of packaged snacks was pretty weird. Maybe Madzie made a theme request and Magnus had already gone overboard?

Alec handed Jace the milk he'd finally rescued from the back and shook his head. "Nope. The regular food I get but I have no idea what's up with all those chips."

After a very large breakfast — or a late lunch, depending on how you figured these things — Izzy disappeared back to the Institute with still a half-asleep Max to finalize the event planning. Magnus hovered over Clary after having left the table several times to go and check on her while they were eating. He did at least explain she'd been accidentally channeling a lot of angelic power during the hunt and he was worried how much she'd exhausted herself. Worried enough that he remained stubbornly awake and increasingly cranky until Alec finally threatened to call Cat for back-up if Magnus didn't lay the fuck down. Alec even used his And You Better Fucking Listen voice, which was only getting more effective as time went on. Jace had years of practice ignoring it, but he'd still find himself halfway to following one of those orders on autopilot if he wasn't paying attention.

Magnus sulked like an exhausted toddler, but agreed to "nap" next to Clary if someone else would keep an eye on her and promise to wake him if anything changed. Gracious in victory, particularly after bullying Magnus into sleep clothes, Alec had tucked Magnus in and then he and Jace had sat watch while their anchors slept. In the end it was well after midnight, but just as Magnus was finally starting to stir from his dead sleep, Clary woke up on her own. She was starving, but otherwise no worse for the wear.

It was all in the nick of time considering the coming evening was the Alliance ceremony.


	16. Of Parabatai and Angels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ithuriel's gonna get an arrow through the eye someday.

Just past sunrise, Magnus and Clary had headed to the Institute, leaving Jace and Alec at the loft and safely out of the way until they were needed. With most of the day to kill, they'd ended up in the new training space downstairs from the loft itself where the fresh cut wood of the floor still smelled clean and bright. Sweat would sink into the bones of the place eventually, but for now it hovered in the air as an interloper.

Three of the walls had long banks of windows letting in the hard, blue-white light of winter that was making the intermittent flurries of snow flakes shine like glitter. This time of day, the only shadows were the ones cast to the insides of the brick support columns that broke up the otherwise wide open space. It was going to be hot as blazes in there at the height of summer, like sparring at the Institute in Kuala Lumpur again.

They had managed to hold the barrier between them and keep the bond at bay until they were alone at least, but as soon as they'd picked up weapons there had been no resisting the tide. In an instant, _they_ had become _parabatai_. After that, the sparring had been a dance. The rhythm of movements were a rehearsal of things that might be useful another time while sweat washed away his impatience, the stretch of muscles a relief after the hours of sitting watch.

He'd started with staffs and rotated through swords and daggers. Kindjals had been folded into the regular rotation, too, ever since Clary picked them as her primary. Weapons were traded on the fly, pushing the boundaries of how fast each body could adjust speed and angles of attack for the needs of an individual weapon. He'd grappled with himself, testing for weaknesses in runeless strength, bodies hitting the smooth wood and rough brick, impacts echoing through all his bones and muscles. He'd known he was taking on some damage, but there was no pain to slow him down.

Once he'd finally came to ground, he'd managed to pull apart the sticky cling of his minds until he was two people again. More or less. It was at least enough there had been the thought to check there was no active bleeding anywhere. Now they were sitting back to back, heat radiating out of their bodies and into each other. They would tip back into parabatai in a heartbeat, but for now they were some slightly muddled version of Jace-and-Alec, the bond itself wrapped up around their edges and through their core.

As was frequently the case lately, Jace's mind had set up camp within the safety of Alec's mental walls. It was getting harder and harder to remember why that wasn't a desired outcome — after all, his hind brain insisted, Alec was _his._ That insistence wasn't new, but it was a little louder than it used to be.

Jace rubbed away the sweat threatening to drip into his eyes.

Alec hadn't flinched from the train of Jace's thoughts, but it was hardly the first time he'd heard Jace's possessiveness recently. It wasn't like Alec hadn't known Jace was an asshole long before they'd started climbing in each other's heads. So was Alec, he was just a better man. Alec was all prickly over top a soul you could use like a guiding star.

Alec was irritated by the image, which made Jace smile. He rubbed the back of his head against the back of Alec's neck and Alec huffed at the gesture but his irritation faded. Then there rose an image of a familiar ring on a distinctive hand, all wrapped up in smugness, and Jace kept smiling. Yeah, he had to share with Magnus, but he didn't mind that. Jace trusted Magnus with Alec.

Alec finally proposing had helped with their current problem of occasionally forgetting they were two individual people and not a single weapon. It was easier for Alec to look outward with something so bright and new. More importantly, it was easier for Jace to remember there was a dividing line with it so prominent in Alec's thoughts. Alec could keep his own boundaries through sheer, stubborn willpower most of the time, but for Jace, who was always ready for a fight with any weapon at his disposal, it was too easy to lose track of himself in the bond. Respecting Magnus' claim on Alec was half of how Jace had been keeping himself in his own skin recently. The rest of it had been respecting Clary's claim on _him_.

He could admit it was a bit fucked up, but it wasn't like he was going around and telling people. Alec knew, but he wasn't people. He was parabatai.

Alec hummed at that — acknowledgment more than anything — and Jace drifted back into his own edges for a moment with the slight vibration against his spine. The bond stirred lazily, reluctant to let him go far.

The length of decades, of centuries, spun out in front of them as dust motes danced in the sunbeams. It was still too vast to really grasp, but between them it came flavored with a mix joy and uncertainty. What was important in the here and now was the peacefulness of the space with the sounds of the city muffled and distant. Alec found the quiet restful, more so than Jace. It was a good training area regardless: no real height but it allowed for plenty of lateral movement. There were definitely going to be targets on the far wall sooner rather than later and Alec could already see them, see an arrow flying true, hear the _thunk_ as it impacted.

Jace slipped out of his own edges again.

Within the boundaries of Alec's mind, Jace still sat on the floor. He was near Alec's feet, leaning back on his hands and watching silently as Alec stood shooting arrow after arrow. Outside it was winter, but Alec's version of the training floor was filled with the golden, late afternoon light of some mid-summer day. Sweat was rolling off both of them, not from sparring but from sticky summer heat, the propped open windows of no help without any actual air moving. It was the opposite of the Institute's perpetual stone walled chill where so much of the light was filtered through stained glass.

He could see himself out of the corner of Alec's eyes. There was a sting in Alec's right hand, because of course he was shooting bare handed. He would stop soon though, before the skin broke. He would stop partly because of the way Jace looked at him these days when he didn't, only slightly appeased when Alec healed the broken skin with an iratze right after, and partly because there was no urgency to this, just idle practice. There was no perfection to chase here.

It was easy to be still inside Alec's mind, but Alec had always been better at stillness. Better at waiting for the perfect shot, at holding his tongue. Jace was better at finding the right words, but Alec could fade into the shadows when he wanted.

Alec paused with string of his bow pulled taut and looked over at Jace, amused. "I remember my mouth getting me in plenty of trouble." He let the arrow fly and lowered his bow.

Jace shrugged. "Pretty sure you were pissed off 90% of the time from at _least_ eleven years old until you finally kissed Magnus in front of half the goddamn Council. If you'd said a quarter of the shit you wanted to, we would have all been bleeding from our ears at one point or other."

Alec rolled his eyes, but he was still amused. He raised his bow again, arrow already nocked, and pulled the string taut.

It had taken Magnus for Jace to realize that while Alec _could_ slip through the shadows, they didn't suit him. He'd been made for fire and brimstone.

"Are you ready for this?" Alec asked.

"The thing where we go fucking around with our souls again or the living forever part? Either way the answer is no, but I don't think these are the kinds of things you can be ready for."

The arrow hit the target. "Fucking around with our souls worked out okay the first time. We don't have to figure the rest out yet."

It was a far cry from the morning of their first parabatai ceremony. Both of them had been sharp as blades back then and Izzy had spent weeks ahead of time dancing around Alec's unspoken nerves lest he spook. Admittedly, Jace had done the same; Magnus' surprise over their t-shirts had reminded Jace well enough of how both he and Izzy had been eager to agree with anything Alec so much as suggested. The New York Institute hadn't seen so little arguing in years.

There'd still been unreasonable, last minute panic and Jace had stared at the empty spot as he waited on a late Alec, his stomach cramping with grief and dismay—

"It was perfectly reasonable panic," Alec protested. There was the slightest curl of unease in Alec's own stomach, although his was more a memory of old troubles.

Jace pulled out the small dagger at his ankle, rolled up to his knees, and sent it end over end to the center of the middle target.

The feeling in Alec's gut dissipated like smoke.

Jace sat back on his heels. He had thought Alec had finally figured out how screwed up Jace really was and sensibly turned tail and ran.

"So we were both panicking that the other would figure out what we already knew. In your case that you think you're damaged goods and act twice as cocky as you actually feel to cover it up." Another arrow hit the target.

Jace scowled up at him. "You're an asshole." Alec wasn't supposed to say it _out loud_ , what the hell.

"Mmhmm," Alec said, drawing another arrow and not looking away from the target. "You're wrong, of course; you're not broken. Although, to be fair, half as cocky as you act is still pretty substantial, so arrogant I won't argue with."

"You know, there are people deeply concerned that I walk all over you."

Alec smiled and released the arrow. "People are foolish sometimes." Then he lowered his bow a fraction and frowned at the arrow that was a hair off center.

"What does it matter in here?" Jace asked.

"It matters," Alec said and there were a whole cascade of images, all of them with arrows gone slightly astray. The focus was so tight, it took Jace a half dozen scene flips before he realized it wasn't the real world he was seeing, but their mutual nightmares.

"Missing your last chance is a part of it, Alec," Jace said, a thread of tired sorrow winding between them. "You can't control nightmares."

There were more flashes of memories: a wide-eyed child huddled in a corner and stifling their sobs, the smell of a battlefield larger than either of them had ever experienced in their waking hours, heavy breathing echoing in a dark alley and the sound of pursuing footsteps. There were other nightmares hovering just out of sight, ones Jace had a visceral memories of living through, but that was one absolute barrier that Alec could and did hold on all but the worst nights. Cold dripped down Jace's spine just at the thought of their existence, but the sunlight suddenly blazed in through the banks of windows, turning everything white-hot-gold for a moment. Jace blinked, his eyes dazzled, fears falling to ash. When the light faded, there was only his parabatai.

"Watch me," Alec said, calm and implacable, as he drew back his bow again.

At first, the only real difference for Jace had been that suddenly Alec was there in the fractured landscape of his dreams. The nightmares had only drawn them both in two or three times a week when it had started, and some of them had been new, raw edged and horrific, but most were familiar terrors. Then there was the night in Alicante. The nightmares had bloomed between them in the darkness virtually every night since regardless of Clary and Magnus and their anchoring effect, all of it fear and pain and loss when it wasn't blood and scorched earth. It was never good dreams they shared, but the angels were only kind to Clary and parabatai were made for war.

Alec released the next arrow. "To tell the truth, I won't know what to do when I'm only having my own nightmares again."

Jace grimaced and dropped his head. "Sorry." His hand twitched up to conceal the action, to rub at the back of his neck and turn it into something other than it was, but he just let his hand fall again. What did it matter? There was only Alec here.

"Wasn't looking for an apology." Alec walked around him to square with the third target, his hand passing over the bared nape of Jace's neck. The unspoken _Mine_ was very clear.

Jace's obscure shame and dismay faded even as the itch in his brain settled. Possessive bastard. Good thing Magnus already knew what he was getting into.

Alec smiled, nocked an arrow, drew, released. It hit dead center.

Jace rose to his feet to go and retrieve the dagger. He left the shadow of the column and walked the length of the space, passing through blazing sunlight and intermittent stripes of cool shade. An arrow flew past him to the otherwise empty third target. Beside him, Alec lowered his bow and looked up at the canopy of leaves arcing over the path they were walking on.

Jace blinked, said, "Wait."

The parabatai raised his weapons and scanned the surroundings. By the time he'd completed a full circuit, he was in the middle of a clearing. Had his selves fallen asleep on the training room floor? Was this another nightmare? 

"Hmm," said the angel standing in front of him. "Not helpful." He waved one hand and the parabatai—

Jace felt himself _yanked_ apart from Alec, the bond pulled too far and too fast even as a wall slammed down between them.

He thought he knew what it felt like when the parabatai state broke, but it turned out that was only when the bond was a fraction of its current strength. The sudden pain was intense enough that his knees weakened as every sense — sight, sound, _taste_ — scattered between _parabatai_ and _Jace._ He sucked in a hard breath, tasting blood and light, his heart lurching in his chest. It was followed by a sick sensation like a punch to his solar plexus and there was a split second where he couldn't breathe before his air rushed back in and nearly choked him. As soon as his vision cleared, he automatically looked for Alec and found him pale and breathing hard but with his bow still raised, the arrowhead little more than a foot from the angel's right eye.

"Well I still have that much influence over the two of you," the angel murmured. "For now."

"Ithuriel," Jace said faintly, letting his sword drop halfway down. There was sunshine and a cool breeze, but he couldn't have reported any more details of their surroundings besides "woodland". He needed to ask Alec if they were dreaming but _he couldn't feel Alec._

"Blood bearer," Ithuriel greeted Jace with the slightest inclination of his head. "Hail and well met."

Alec's bow didn't waver despite how he was the color of chalk.

Jace deliberately tried to sense his parabatai, but there was an impenetrable wall between them. This wall was nothing like when Alec blocked Jace from his mind, this was like part of Jace's soul had been carved out, like it had never been there at all. He tried pulling the barrier down but he couldn't gain any traction on it and the hard, alien presence didn't budge. It was like Alec simply didn't exist except for what Jace could physically see. He could still feel his own half of the bond — bright and furious — but where Alec should have been there was a nauseating, utter _blank._

"You can't have him," Alec said with a voice as hard as iron and his bowstring pulled taut.

Like imagining sound in the echoes of silence, Jace's body was desperately trying to fill in the gaps left by Alec's absence. He could feel the phantom bite of the bowstring and a wisp of stubborn, righteous anger, but the real Alec felt like miles of bedrock under Jace's feet, like a hard line at his back. This ghostly afterimage in his place was little more than a hollow shell.

Ithuriel's eyes narrowed as he looked over at Alec. "I am well aware you've claimed Heaven's sacrificial lamb, you contrary nephilim, and I have no intention of challenging you for dominion. Quite the opposite in fact. It is you I've called here, Alexander, to remind you of your obligations."

Alec's bow still didn't budge. Ithuriel smiled.

"Heaven and Hell have brokered an exchange of sorts," he continued. "An heir and two precious angel born will be bound together today and you have the responsibility of their keeping."

"You mean Jace, Magnus, and Clary."

"Yes."

"You're saying I'm responsible for protecting them."

"Correct."

Alec finally lowered his bow and looked over at Jace. "Why do people keep warning me about the blindingly obvious like it's some dire situation?"

Jace looked back at him. Alec sounded annoyed and not particularly concerned but, given the circumstances, Jace would really prefer to _know_ what his parabatai was thinking. His own sense of the bond was an irritable golden sparkle now. It had broken up into a thousand sharp edged points that moved restlessly against the invisible barrier in the direction Alec should be, pushing and prodding, looking for a way over, around, or through.

"Should any of them come to irreparable harm, Alexander, we will take the price of it from your flesh."

 _What?_ Jace turned back to Ithuriel. "From his—" Jace shook his head. "No, that's not— No." He felt his half the bond start to solidify against the barrier, the marshaling of strength like a hard gold light in the corner of his vision. There was an itch up Jace's spine and tightening in the hinge of his jaw. This had gone on long enough.

Alec took a step towards Ithuriel, straightened up to his full height, leaned in, and said with dead certainty, "There is nothing you could do to me that would be worse than any of them coming to 'irreparable harm'."

Jace tensed with a brief flash of panic — because yes there  _is,_ Alec, what the _fuck_ — but before he could react, there was a sense of pressure against his sternum. It was only a split second before the barrier between he and Alec suddenly shattered inward, Alec's half of the bond lashing through the opening like a rope of golden fire that bound Jace in a thousand coils of light. Jace's breath was stolen again and he felt himself cry out as he was blinded by a wash of all-consuming gold. When it faded, when he could gasp in air again, he was still _Jace,_ but the bond was a living thing between them again and it was _angry_. Jace could feel the furious thrum of Alec's heart but he hadn't so much as flinched; he was still toe to toe with Ithuriel and felt as likely to yield as the Rock of Gibraltar.

Ithuriel's gaze dropped down for a moment to— their hands? Jace, still on his feet but breathing hard and glazed in sweat, looked down and realized there was a thin but fully visible line of gold light stretched between he and Alec, either end of it wrapped around their right forearms. He shifted his arm but felt no pull; it didn't seem to be hampering them at least. Jace looked back up in time to see a frown cross Ithuriel's face before he raised his eyes and smirked at Alec. "Well then, my defiant little shepherd, hold fast to your flock and guard your gates well against chance and opportunists."

The faint panic returned and set up camp in the base of Jace's throat, but he ignored it. "Damnit, _no._ Those terms are _not acceptable."_

Alec rocked back and started to raise his bow again, but Ithuriel held up a hand. "That was not intended as a threat, merely a warning. It is my blood you've been given the care of and I have a vested interest in your success."

Jace started to step between them while saying, "He is _not—"_ but Alec's arm shot out and blocked him.

"So you've manipulated us into this ceremony as pawns in some contract?"

Jace growled; someone needed to fucking listen. Neither Heaven nor Hell could exact any price from Alec's flesh because Alec didn't belong to them. Alec belonged to _Jace_. He belonged to Izzy and Magnus. To Max and Clary and Maryse. Alec was _theirs._

"The arrangement is not up for negotiation," Ithuriel said. "Today's ceremony will stabilize all the changes that have already been wrought on the four of you and unlock doors that have been hitherto closed. You have been gifted with immortality and increased resilience, shepherd. The price is eternal vigilance."

Sweat was trickling down Jace's temples and neck. Threats to his parabatai could not stand unchallenged, regardless of the source, and the surging adrenaline scoured doubt from his mind. He tightened his grip on his sword and felt something shift around his forearm. Looking down, he found that where there had been a transparent string of light between he and Alec, there was now a golden cord. Unlike the light, he could feel it, but it still wasn't restricting his movements. It stretched further as he shifted his arm, coiling eagerly around the sliver of hilt above his hand. Jace looked back up and started to raise his sword.

Ithuriel turned his head to the side suddenly, listening. "Now back you go," the angel said absently. "Your chief guard dog approaches."

The world slid sideways and suddenly he was standing there with a sting in his right hand and looking at the targets at the far end of the room, watching himself flip a dagger end over end. He stood there and it felt like his skin was burning from the intensity of the sunlight as he shifted uncomfortably in the shadows. He frowned, a confused mix of protective and scared with a common thread of hard anger. There was something else nagging at him too, like following the trail of an unknown prey and seeing a broken twig.

Before he could investigate that feeling, though, faint footsteps echoed in from the stairwell and the last of their selves, the parts that were still vaguely _Jace_ and _Alec_ , dissolved into a single focus. The parabatai opened his eyes. He was sitting back to back with himself on the floor of the training room. The blue-white light of a winter sun was pouring in through the banks of windows. His exposed skin had dried in the cool air but his clothes were still drenched and clingy with sweat.

There was the click of the heavy door leading to the training space and he turned his heads toward the entrance. He dropped his dominant hands to the sword hilts on the floor next to his selves, another free hand brushing the still sheathed dagger at one hip.

Izzy stepped into view, her hands conspicuously loose at her sides and whip elongated along her forearm as if she might need it at a moments notice. Dressed for the ceremony, she was rigidly contained by her formal clothes that diverted attention from the temper and energy she so often carried with her like a storm cloud. Her impassive expression and perfect posture were armor for a political battlefield.

He let go of the sword hilts and her whip settled into hard, tight coils at her wrist.

She smiled slightly and said, "Time to shower and get dressed." She turned and walked out the door, heels clicking on the wood.

He rolled to his feet and followed her, swords in hand.

"Rack your weapons, parabatai," she called without looking back. "The monsters we'll be dealing with today require different measures."


	17. Intermezzo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang's all here in the in-between — except, perhaps, for _Alec_ and _Jace_. Depending on how you define these things.

Izzy supervised his preparations as if he couldn't dress himself. While she perched on the edge of the chair in the bedroom, he took showers in turn. The brief separation of his selves made him uneasy; there was no threat in the loft, but his anchors were out of reach and without the distraction of sparring, he felt unsteady around the edges.

The shirts waiting for him were a pale blue and the shoes were a dark gray, but the pants he put on were a plain light gray from his closets since one of Magnus' last minute tasks was picking up the ceremonial pairs that were still being finished. Scrubbed, shaved, dressed, and suitably arranged, he submitted to Izzy's inspection. Once she'd tweaked his hair to her satisfaction and settled some of her own nerves, they could finally head to the institute.

They didn't go in the front door. The front entrance and most direct path would have brought him into contact with far too many people who would have tripped his keyed up instincts, or who would have attempted to trap him in conversation for the sake of curiosity. Instead, they slipped in the back way. When they arrived at the office, he found the witnesses, along with Maia and Simon, already waiting. Izzy ushered him to the couch as if he couldn't seat himself, kissed Simon hello, then kicked off her shoes and sat sideways next to him with her knees pulled up and toes tucked under one of his thighs. She was trying to pretend she wasn't worried, but she was staying conspicuously close. Max just shoved him apart enough to squeeze in between.

With everyone else arrayed on chairs and the fireplace ledge, or leaning against the desk in Raphael's case, the conversations they'd been having resumed. Maia, sitting on the ledge and studying him, said to Simon next to her, "High. As. Kites." He remembered her presence at the demon run, both early on in the middle of the fight and much later assisting Magnus, but she looked like she'd recovered well. Wolves were resilient that way. Luke was apparently keeping her close pre-ceremony rather than turning his second out into the hazards of the crowd occupying the cloisters; whether that was for her safety or theirs was up for debate. Regardless, she was a steadfast ally and another weapon at hand.

"Really? All of them?" Simon asked with a grin. He looked tired, but that was likely jet lag, which was easily enough overcome by adrenaline should a situation come up.

"And the short one in the middle tastes foul."

"Hey!" Max yelped, sounding affronted. It was anyone's guess whether he was offended by not being tasty to a werewolf while covered in gnat demon ichor or by being described as short.

Luke, sitting in one of the chairs, turned his head to give Maia a Look, but she wasn't repentant in the slightest.

"He bit me first."

The door knob turned and the parabatai's heads snapped around, one hand dropping toward the dagger he'd slipped between the cushions. A hand blocked his way and he split his attention between the door and Max. Max met the parabatai's glare and shook his head slightly.

It was Magnus who walked through the door, two garment bags over his arms. He'd gotten dressed himself in his own formal clothes at some point and was now impeccably turned out with hair that was not only several inches high, but had glitter _in_ it. Angel help anyone who tried to fuck with the High Warlock of Brooklyn today.

The parabatai relaxed back into the couch. He should have realized who it was — if nothing else, he should have felt the ring considering the way it tugged at him like a beacon — but he'd been distracted by the conversation. He would need to be more vigilant.

"Remainder of the outfits in the nick of time!" Magnus announced. "Weaving the fabric added a bit of a delay, but all's well that ends well. Gentlemen, if you'd please drop your pants."

Raphael groaned. "You really just wanted to say that, didn't you?"

Magnus beamed at Raphael and the feel of him was a little too bubbly, like he was a bit manic around the edges. It was probably only his recent exhaustion keeping his power from bleeding out at the edges. "Not _just_ say that," he chirped, "but yes, yes I did."

The parabatai removed his shoes, then left the couch to change from the plain gray pants to the subtly less plain ones that Magnus handed him. With his shirts tucked in and shoes and belts back on, he submitted to Magnus' inspection. Magnus made a little spinning gesture with his hand and the parabatai obligingly did a 360 degree turn.

"My compliments to your tailor," Maia said and returned Simon's offered fist bump.

"Hmm, yes." Magnus made minor adjustments to the fall of shirts and tweaked a few locks of hair. "Okay, I think you're ready."

The parabatai rolled his eyes. "You're as bad as Izzy. You know I can dress myself, right?" He tried sending Magnus a sense of reassurance, but it felt like yelling through a heavy door and he didn't know how effectively the message got through.

"Yep," Simon said. "Still weird. They sound wrong like this."

Izzy glared. "One of you maybe, but I remember when the other was a complete tragedy. I don't trust you not to revert to old habits." Then she added to Simon, "It's the accents. You don't half realize they're different until they're all mixed up. Not to mention they seem to pick who's speaking at random when they're right next to each other."

He almost said _I am always the one speaking,_ but that would only lead to an interrogation. There were other priorities right now.

Magnus nodded. "I do know. That's not going to stop us in the slightest when it's a formal occasion."

Maia was looking at Magnus with a puzzled expression. "Wait, did you say you had the material _specially woven?_ Am I missing something? Because that seems over the top, even for you."

"Nephilim and their colors," Raphael answered. "Both their clothes and ours all have specific meanings."

The parabatai plucked at a pale, sky colored sleeve. "Blue for the accords."

"Among other things," Magnus added, spinning up a ball of blue magic that was mostly the darker shade of Magnus' own shirt and Clary's dress.

"Red for magic and ceremonies," Izzy chimed in. She stood and walked over to the ball of magic, passing a hand over the surface. Magnus turned it red at her touch so that it matched it her dress. Red also represented Clary's red-gold power, and blue was not just most aspects of Magnus' magic, but represented Magnus himself. Magnus had explained that it worked as a kind of cross-lashing: blue for Magnus and nephilim accords, red Clary and traditional warlock magic.

Max held up a dagger by the blade, the one he'd confiscated, with its black handle on display. "Black for hunting through the night," he said, then secured it in a sheath at his ankle.

The parabatai frowned. Fortunately, there was a spare affixed under the top of the desk. The real question was where was Max's that he had an empty ankle sheath.

Luke pointed at Magnus. "The white beads on the one necklace are bone, which is for those who never grow old." He hesitated before he dropped his hand and clenched it into a loose fist; probably because Clary, too, was wearing bone. The jewelry she was wearing was borrowed from Cat — the stones passed for pearl, but they were actually polished and coated bone. The buttons on the parabatai's dress shirts were too. For the sake of the ceremony, the witnesses had all been briefed on the main symbology at work, but telling everyone else about that would have spilled open secrets they were still keeping close.

"The pants material needed to be gray for knowledge proscribed by the Clave," Magnus said, finally answering Maia's question, "but also silver for powers of demon origin. Just not obviously so. They are actually gray, threaded with silver. They'll have a sheen to them at the right angle. Clary's shoes serve the same purpose, but it's far easier to find dark gray shoes that have a glittery finish so that they shine silver."

Clary approached notably closer. He'd been paying closer attention to sensing her since he'd missed Magnus' arrival and now he could feel her moving through space with purpose.

"Obvious or not, someone's still going to notice how thoroughly you've staked your claim, Magnus," Raphael warned. "I'm surprised you didn't try to sneak in ceremonial gold anywhere."

Magnus smirked. "I didn't need to, we all came with our own." He dropped the glamour on his eyes for a moment to make the point and Raphael rolled his own in acknowledgment.

The parabatai swiveled one gaze toward the door and two heartbeats later Clary entered with his mother.

"Ten minute warning. Is everyone ready?" his mother asked. Without waiting for an answer, she walked over and began inspecting him, brushing at invisible lint and adjusting the the precise lay of his hair.

He sighed. Behind him he heard a couple of snickers that he was sure came from Max and Maia.

Clary bit back a grin but he could still feel the sharp spike of her amusement. "They look ready to tackle the sharks circulating in the cloisters."

"Speaking of," his mother said to her, "I meant to compliment you on how you handled Councilor Seraiah. I have never seen him anything but smug and supercilious. The conversation looked entirely civil from across the room but he's been walking around blatantly terrified ever since. Well done." She turned back to the parabatai and smiled at him, kissing both his selves on the cheek. "I'll see you two afterward."

She left and most of the room turned and stared at Clary, who smiled with all teeth.


	18. An Alliance Forged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Core ex machina

"Okay," Izzy said, "I'll lead the way—"

"No." The parabatai retrieved the dagger from under the desk and slipped it into his empty ankle sheath.

"No? What do you mean no?"

"I mean no. I'll be taking point."

"I am perfectly capable of taking point, thank you, and despite the fact I let you two keep the daggers, please remember this is not an actual armed confrontation. You need to stand the fuck down."

Like she wasn't wearing three weapons under her dress in addition to the whip on her wrist. Still, change of tactics. "Of course you are, but you'll be walking with Max. I'll lead with my anchors to either side and then the witnesses."

Izzy, Clary, and Magnus were standing next to each other and looking at him with expressions that ranged from suspicious to thoughtful. Izzy _was_ perfectly capable of running point in this situation, as were his anchors, but he knew as well as anyone the way first gazes could cut like blades. Let them blunt their weapons on him before the challenge was met in earnest.

"So weird," Simon said somewhere off to the side.

"SO weird," Maia agreed.

Finally Magnus shrugged. "I have no objections. It's hardly a matter for serious debate and time is short regardless. Now come here and let me roll up your sleeves since otherwise we'll just end up fumbling through it in the middle of everything."

Izzy sighed and rolled her eyes, but coordinated sleeve rolling efforts.

Five minutes later, the parabatai led the way into the cloisters flanked a half step behind by Clary and Magnus with the witnesses following after. The moment he came into view, an abrupt silence descended among the guests. The parabatai walked onto the path marked between the entry and the containment pattern — a circular path that spiraled in by Magnus' mandate, its boundaries established by friend and foe alike that were washed up to its edges. Even Aline had traveled in to stand witness. Her nod was solemn as he passed, but there was a lightness to her eyes and to the set of her shoulders.

The shadows that normally collected in the cloisters had been banished by a forest of candelabras scattered throughout the space. Concentrated near the center, they ringed the containment pattern in flame, the light flaring and dancing in ways that defied the logic of air movement. The containment pattern itself he could feel even before the crowd parted enough that he could see it: there was a deep thrumming under his feet that grew more insistent the closer he approached, a slow rolling cadence like the ponderous beat of a massive drum. From the center of the room, the power reached out for him, pulsing in time to the beat, and throwing off a sharp edge of sound that rose up high and clear and smelled of winter. Suddenly the angelic core poured upward like a fearsome joy, blue-white fire rushing up through the stone from the heart of the Institute. It spilled outward from the center and seized control of its domain, rippling across every surface, crawling up the walls, and engulfing the building's bones. He didn't hesitate and instead stayed the course as power made manifest rushed past his feet like a river swelling its banks.

He could feel the icy bite of the power even through the leather of his shoes. It wasn't sweet or well-mannered, it was a vicious protection like the unyielding edge of an adamas blade. It filled the Institute with a quiet roar, but still, in between each drawn out thump under his feet, he was aware of a sharp _plink_. It was a small sound, so quiet he almost didn't think it was real, but then an image rose as if in answer to his confusion: a consecration of blood drops on the floor of the archery range. He was briefly torn between continued confusion and vivid recognition, his two disparate sets of knowledge and understanding flaring bright like signal flares before melding into a single, unquestioning acceptance.

Time abruptly folded. He had a strange sense of _then_ — the first ceremony, his selves only three quarters grown, both terrified and exhilarated — and _now_ — the solidness of his bones, the strength of his foundations, the number of allies watching his back — before the containment pattern was suddenly only a few steps away. The thought crossed his mind this path was utter madness, or maybe he sensed someone else thinking they were collectively walking off a precipice, but it was too late for doubts; they'd known the powers they were tapping into. There were some alarmed looks on the faces around him, but he saw Cat at the edge of the crowd, near to where they would all enter the pattern just in case. She ignored the power lapping at her ankles, met his eyes, and smiled. He kept walking.

He had experienced many kinds of power in his lives, vast powers of both heavenly and hellish origin, but this, regardless of its name, this was none of them. This was like walking toward the heart of a star. It was a hell of a time to discover the core that had always lain quiet under their feet was a wild thing, but he could feel it calling him home, feel the way _Alec_ belonged to the Institute.  _Alec_ who was _parabatai_.

The core seized greedy hold and pulled him irresistibly inward.

He crossed the boundary.

The lines flared white as he passed over them. Then, the moment he stopped within, he heard Magnus say Clary's name and he turned to watch them each crouch down, reach a hand into blue-white fire, and touch the inner boundary lines. The white glow of the circle was flooded with red and blue, the colors picking out a previously invisible pattern. He could feel tumblers falling into place, locking the power lines inside the boundary with them, and when the last lock fell, the inside of the circle _exploded_ as the power of the core itself was constrained to the inner circle.

He stopped breathing, he might have stopped even existing for those two heartbeats before it collapsed back and he became the nexus of the storm. The power roared like an incoherent scream as it poured up through him to feed each of his anchors, which in turn strengthened the boundary, and then fed from them back into him, more and more blue/red/gold feeding into the white with every moment. He was, briefly, nothing but energy, all of it overflowing him like a cup running over, power pouring out the edges of his skin. Grasping desperately for steady ground amid the maelstrom, he clasped his forearms together. It was a motion as familiar as taking up the hilt of his sword or the grip of his bow. Like his weapons, it wasn't a port in a storm — it made him _bigger_ than the storm.

His parabatai runes began to burn and the power roaring through him shifted slowly from an incoherent howl to an immense chorus. It was made up of the deep bass of stone and a high harmony of stained glass, of the sharp clang of clashing practice swords and electricity crackling through the walls, of the bright flare of fire and magic, and, underneath it all, the sound of blood falling from the archer's hand in unknowing sacrifice.

The entire world suddenly fell outward from that place in time and there was silence. In the deafening quiet, he spoke with both voices, "Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee."

Like a flipped switch, the power that had been pouring through him suddenly poured _into_ him and even into the bond itself. He lost words for a moment, his only language universal constants and starlight.

When the words returned, when he could work his throat again, he said hoarsely, "For whither thou goest, I will go, and whither thou lodgest, I will lodge."  

The bond writhed amid the surging energy he could feel filling up his chest and his mind, pushing at the boundaries of his skin.

"Thy people will be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried."

The bond expanded, swelling so much with the influx of power it seemed like nothing but a cloud of gold that was fizzing through him.

"The Angel do so to me, and more also if aught but death part thee and me."

A golden cord glowed, wrapped tight around his clasped forearms, and a riotous surge of gold filled up his mind and his soul. The power rose again like heat radiating off asphalt as he felt sweat trickle between his shoulder blades. He was stubbornness and kindness, love and anger, insecurity and arrogance, light and shadow, mercy and retribution, the shepherd and the sacrificial lamb. He was older and wiser than the first time he'd spoken these vows a lifetime ago. Then he'd said them all twice; now he knew how to speak with one voice. Then it had been about tapping into the power and setting it free; now it ran through him like a river and he'd learned the value of control. He grinned, feeling the strength in his bones, and reached to either side for the tethers doggedly keeping him from drowning.

His tethers, his anchors, were just a half pivot away in easy arm's reach, watching and waiting. He took his steles from them and they offered up the thin, vulnerable skin of their inner forearms, holding their arms steady with the opposite hands. He paused at an abrupt spike of fear— Magnus. They were so close here and now, though, that he could sense the complication beneath it too: love and determination and inevitability. The only way out was through, so he set the tips of the steles to their wrists and focused on the binding.

Drawing the two Alliance runes themselves was easy, the motions as smooth and automatic as nocking an arrow, as if he'd been drawing them for years. Neither anchor flinched, but he felt distant flashes of pain from both sides even as Magnus' fear faded. He gave them his steles and presented his own forearms, resting his unbound wrists in the waiting cradles of their free hands. The tip of Alec's stele glowed red in Magnus' hand and there was a collective gasp from outside the circle. A savage amusement wound through from both sides; his anchors were in agreement.

The pair of steles touched his skin almost simultaneously and, as they slid down in the smooth curve of the first stroke, an unexpected pain tore through him. He sucked in surprised breaths and closed his eyes, letting it roll through him and bracing his knees; pain was an old friend and this was transcendent. He could feel blood trickling away from the runes, the marks cutting into his skin even as they engraved themselves on the surface of the bond itself. There was a pause before the second strokes and the pain snapped back, the brief absence taking his breath away, the lingering remnants curling down through his abdomen and shuddering out through the edges of his skin.

Suddenly, more quickly, there came the third and fourth strokes of the runes. The power of the bond, the power of everything that made his selves who they were and everything that made him parabatai, all crescendoed like a wave and froze, suspended at its highest point, awaiting the last part of the marks. He could feel his anchors transmuting into something other, their selves beginning to knit into the edges of his own.

Then they added the final two dots to the mark and the thing was done. The Alliance was sealed.

Whatever veils that had protected him were abruptly torn loose and the power that had been pressing in from either side poured into him, a massive well of energy filling him up like a vessel. His heads dropped back and a noise tore from his throats to the heavens. Opening his eyes, kept from staggering only by his own grip and that of his anchors, he was blinded by a blaze of light: the candelabras ringing the center had all surged impossibly high and he was in the middle of a ring of fire. He bared his teeth and braced against the onslaught as heaven and hell broke through the boundaries of the bond and began tearing him apart at a fundamental level, scattering him into something larger and greater. He fell through blood and fire and pain into a tempest tossed sea of white/gold/red/blue, at once nothing and everything. He staggered, but kept his feet, then dropped his heads down, gasping for air, eyes still sightless to anything but the all consuming light.

 _"Witnessed,"_ said a strong, clear voice.

"Witnessed," said another, deeper but just as firm.

"Witnessed!" a third rang out, echoing off the stone.

"Witnessed," said a fourth, quieter but just as sure.

There was a final sense of things clicking into place; the witnesses had passed muster for some invisible measure. The storm within him swept outward and there were distant cries of surprise. He took a hard breath— no, two hard breaths — and settled somehow a little closer to his own skins. To their own skins.

Alec, still gasping for air, found himself in the pocket of silence. He could feel Magnus still wide open, adrift in a new sea, and Alec tucked him safely off in his own mind. His sense of Clary had already receded, Jace automatically corralling and armoring her the same way. There were no walls up between he and Jace, but they were _themselves_ and it was enough that Clary was in far recesses of his mind like she was a couple of hallways away.

His lungs finally catching up, Alec blinked, his eyes dry and still a bit dazzled from the flames that had receded to their wicks. He probably looked as half-stunned as Jace, like he'd taken a hard blow to the head and didn't know which way was up. Jace's arm was shaking in his grasp, but then, Alec was shaking too. He pulled Jace the last step between them and Jace dropped his head to Alec's shoulder. Alec could feel how much of it was still piled up in Jace's throat and behind his eyes, but he was breathing easier. Alec didn't have any free hands to hug Jace properly, but he kissed the side of his head.

Then Alec turned his head enough to look over at Magnus, who smiled faintly. Alec looked down and saw that Magnus still held his wrist and that there was blood seeping from both sides of Alec's rune and running down over Magnus' fingers. The rune itself was still raw like an unhealed wound. Thankfully, the edge he could see of Magnus' appeared the standard dark black.

"Are you still in there?" Magnus whispered. "It feels like it, but I'm new at this. Verbal confirmation would be welcome."

Alec startled and looked back up. "I'm… yes. We're fine, it's just… A lot."

Magnus nodded. "My best guess is that, ideally, you and Jace should undo the knots in the cord binding you together. Second best option is Clary and I help."

Alec's brain was still returning from another place entirely and he stared at Magnus for several seconds before finally looking down between he and Jace and realizing there was an actual, physical cord wrapped around their forearms. Magnus let go of Alec's arm and Alec leaned back enough to trace his fingers over the cord. It was immediately clear both what it was and that very, very few people should be anywhere near it. Ever.

Jace froze in place, as aware as Alec of the potential vulnerability they suddenly needed to hide in a room full of witnesses. The bond itself was a mental shriek between them, in serious distress and confusion over its sudden transformation to having a corresponding physical reality. Without conscious plan, Alec sank down in his own mind, into the liminal space between he and Jace. He wrapped himself protectively around the bond even as Jace rose up, wielding control over both their selves like a sword in either hand. Alec could feel Magnus go very still behind him, but it was Jace who calmly eased Alec's stance and asked very seriously, "You good?"

"I'm great," Jace replied with mock solemnity. "I'm going to be even better after some champagne." The crowd laughed and the tension broke, a murmuring starting up and echoing off the stone walls.

Alec sent _Intercept, distract, delay_ hard to either side, the same as he would to Jace, hoping the message got through. It must have: Magnus was suddenly between Alec and his mother and Izzy even as Clary distracted an exuberant Max while diverting Luke's attention as he attempted to offer congratulations. "Alec" started a brisk and businesslike undoing of the short series of knots, his face a congenial blank. Alec himself cringed at the sensation of having his soul torn open and hung out to dry for the attendees inspection while trying to soothe the howling bond. It was managing to lay limp around their arms but there were far too many new sensations in the physical world and it was wildly sensitive. Jace's motions were precise and gentle, but each touch was like an electric shock right through their cores.

Izzy slipped around Magnus just as "Alec" reached the last knot and he slapped at her hand when she tried to help. "You've been picking at us all day. Let me do this." He freed the last of it, quickly wrapped the cord around his clean hand, and slid it into his pocket.

As soon as the cord was safely in Alec's pocket, Jace dropped back and Alec slid back up like they were trading off attacks on an enemy.

"That looked pretty intense," Luke observed, having just broken off from hugging Clary. "Not quite the same, huh?"

Alec shook his head. He started to take Luke's hand for the congratulatory shake in both of his own, realized he was still dripping blood from one, and used just the clean one instead. He smiled. "No, this one was a lot different."

Jace laughed, short and sharp. "It had to be different considering we're not as young and stupid as the first time."

"Well," Izzy said, looping her arm around Alec's elbow, "not as young at any rate."


	19. A Soiree Happens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rather important item is secured, some other critical items are added to to-do lists, and too much champagne is consumed. Good thing there's no mundane livers in this bunch.

It was another 20 minutes before everyone dispersed for the reception and, en route, Magnus managed to redirect Alec, Jace, and Clary off into a side hall. Magnus mostly wanted to clean up and check on Alec and Jace's runes, which had only just stopped actively bleeding, but Alec and Clary took the lead and didn't stop until they were all the way back to the office. They passed Max on the way and he waved a couple of phones — his and Izzy's, which had been left with all the rest on Alec's desk — as he darted around them and back toward the reception.

"Runes," Magnus demanded as soon as he had the three of them behind a closed door.

Clary immediately presented the underside of her wrist, but Alec and Jace just looked at him blankly.

"Which ones?" Alec asked.

 _"Which—_ Oh, the new ones. Your parabatai runes aren't hurting, are they?"

It was Jace that answered his question as they both held up their wrists, rune side up. "No, I vaguely remember them burning when everything was happening, but they don't hurt. And these ones feel a lot better than they look."

"That's good," Magnus said taking hold of Alec's arm, "because these ones look terrible."

During the ceremony, Magnus had automatically tensed at the sight of a stele approaching his skin. The fact that Alec had been the one holding it had been both better and worse, but Magnus thought he'd faked completely calm well enough. Once he'd gotten through the first stoke, he'd been able to set aside his fear. It _had_ hurt going on, but nothing was going to compare to the agony rune. Despite the burn of application, and a few sacrificial blood drops that had fallen to the floor, it had healed almost immediately and now looked like nothing besides the deep black of a fresh tattoo. Clary's had healed over to the same state.

Alec and Jace's, however, looked as raw as when he and Clary had first carved the marks. The deep red light of the stele had dug into Alec's skin, cutting close to the arteries and risking a literal bloody mess with bonus unknown repercussions of a half-finished ceremony. Magnus had paused long enough to lean around the parabatai and look at Clary, who he found doing to same, her eyes wide and distressed. With Alec and Jace caught up in the throes of it, she had shifted her hand enough to show him the blood smeared on her knuckles. Once he'd known it wasn't just him, the only way out became through, and he'd nodded at her. She'd set her mouth in a grim line and they'd gone back to carving open their significant others.

The containment pattern had drawn the fallen blood across the stone and into the lines, soaking it up like a greedy sponge, and the bleeding hadn't stopped until the parabatai stepped fully outside its boundaries. Magnus hadn't been and still wasn't particularly alarmed by that, however... "I should mention a strong suspicion that, rather than anything so benign as an alliance, we've inked a blood oath into the stones of the Institute and sanctified it by way of the angelic core."

Hmm, he needed better light for wound inspection. 

"Speaking of," Alec said, letting Magnus drag him by the wrist over to one of the wall sconces, "did you know the angelic core isn't actually, uh, angelic? Of the angels? Like, it's its own thing."

"It feels different," Jace added.

Magnus paused in his inspection and looked up. Alec looked entirely sincere. "You didn't?" he finally asked.

"No?" Alec frowned. "How did you know? It's called an _angelic_ core! Why would it be anything _else?"_

Magnus snapped his fingers at Jace to bring his own wrist closer to light. "Angels don't create energy or power any more than demons do, Alexander. They just manipulate what already exists, sometimes quite a lot of it at one time. More than anyone part human can. The core is a wild energy spirit like all the others the angels captured and installed in the Institutes."

There was silence and, when he looked back up, Alec and Jace were both staring at him like he'd just rearranged their fundamental understanding of the universe. Considering their educations had consisted almost entirely of material approved by the Clave, propaganda and all, maybe he had. Magnus shook his head, "I'll explain it in more detail later. On the bright side, the core here is very fond of you in particular."

“I noticed,” Alec said faintly.

It was concerning Magnus how the wounds had failed to close and heal the way angel marks usually did, but a simple bit of healing magic was probably the first thing to try. As soon as his magic hit the raw skin, it absorbed the power much the same way the containment pattern had been absorbing the blood. In this case, blue sparks flared and spread across the runes, filling in the broken skin and leaving vivid black marks in their wake. Magnus frowned at the fresh, ink black runes. "Biscuit, make a note to start demanding written instructions. Accidentally blundering into what appears to be the correct answer is exceptionally stressful under these conditions."

Which was assuming anyone — angel or otherwise — knew what the instructions were. Magnus wasn't sure whether he preferred there to be answers he didn't have or for no one to know what the hell was going on equally.

Back behind Jace, Clary half laughed. "Yeah, I'll make sure to do that."

"Speaking of Ithuriel," Jace said, "we had a conversation with him this afternoon while Alec held him at arrow point." His tone of voice said it hadn't been a _good_ conversation.

"Aww, I like Ithuriel."

"Where did this even happen?" Magnus asked. "You were at the loft all afternoon."

"It _was_ at the loft," Alec answered. "Before Izzy showed up. Well, the training room, technically."

Magnus huffed. "Visions are one thing, but this is ridiculous. Why do I even bother to have wards? Angels and demons walking through them like they're not even there."

"If it makes you feel better, it was more that he summoned us to him. And I don't know that he could have done that to just anyone."

"Mmmm, no, it doesn't make me feel better, Alexander. So why did he call for you?"

Alec was suspiciously silent and engrossed in studying the new rune on his wrist. Grimly, Jace answered, "Heaven and Hell have brokered some kind of contract that's based on you, me, and Clary being bonded together. They're holding Alec personally responsible for our safety."

 _"Excuse me?"_ Magnus demanded. No, absolutely not, that was completely unacceptable on at least three different levels.

"Yeah, I tried to object, but I was ignored because the two of them were busy having a pissing match. Alec didn't actually say 'bring it on', but it was definitely implied." Jace glared at Alec, who found the far wall absolutely fascinating all the sudden. "On the bright side, he's apparently a little harder to kill now."

Clary was frowning. "I _used_ to like Ithuriel."

Alec, meanwhile, looked completely unperturbed. Of course he did. "Okay, one, it's _literally in the parabatai vows_. Two—"

"The _vows,"_ Jace interrupted, "and what Ithuriel threatened are two different things and you damn well know—!"

"And TWO," Alec said loudly over top Jace, "you heard how fast he shut down the idea of negotiating; objections wouldn't have done any good. If we're going to void any agreement, we're going to have to figure out exactly what it is and who has that authority. In the meantime, everyone agreeing you three are tied together means neither side can use you against the other. That's obviously a win for us."

Magnus sputtered out, "At the expense of—!" He broke off and looked back and forth between Jace and Alec. Then he just stared at Jace.

Jace, still scowling, shook his head. "Don't look at me like that. You knew what you were getting into."

"Anyway," said Alec, "that was the first place I've seen this cord today." He pulled it out of his pocket with a wince.

Next to him, Jace suddenly choked on air and did a full body shudder.

The cord was a lovely pale gold underneath the stain of Alec's blood and looked relatively ordinary. Given it appeared out of nowhere and Alec and Jace's reactions to it, however, Magnus had a very good guess of what it was. He thought for a minute, then reached out for a small rowan wood box he had hidden away. Box in hand, he flipped up the lid and held it open for Alec to place the cord in. Alec carefully and gingerly wound it tighter, then looked down into the box Magnus was holding. Then he looked up at Magnus. Then he looked back down into the box.

Magnus wasn't quite sure what the problem was until Alec pulled the cord a little closer to his chest. Magnus narrowed his eyes and added a padded satin lining to the bare wood. Alec considered the offering for a moment, then extended his hands to gently place the cord inside.

Magnus snapped the box shut and embedded bands of deep blue lapis lazuli and bright red sunstone around it. Then he quickly added three separate wards — reinforcing them with drops of his and Clary's blood in the middle layer and Alec and Jace's blood in the innermost — before vanishing it back to his workroom. It felt a bit like overkill, but he knew full well there was no such thing when dealing in the affairs of nephilim.

Jace sighed in relief. "I don't think it likes being naked."

"Well it's not exactly used to being naked," Clary said. "Okay, right now we have a room full of Clave members to deal with. Magnus, can you clean off my hand?" She held out her still bloody knuckles. "We'll say that's what we ducked out to do and Jace and Alec's runes healed on their own."

"Not mentioning more warlock magic, are we?" Magnus asked as he cleaned the traces of blood left on all four of them. Then he paused. "If this is a joint agreement then I played right into their hands by mixing up the powers in the ceremony."

Alec shook his head. "It may just have been… a convenient pathway. Using a situation to their advantage."

"Point."

"They were always going to fuck with us one way or another. We've got time to figure things out."

Magnus didn't like it, but Alec wasn't wrong either. Regardless, they had more pressing concerns at the moment.

Clary walked over to the mirror set on the wall to shake out her hair, check that her make-up hadn't smudged, and to adjust the fall of her dress to better hide the flat hilted throwing daggers strapped to each thigh. "I think we should mention as little as possible about any of this for the time being."

"Oh, I agree," Magnus said.

She seemed to be recovering rapidly but he was still moderately concerned about her — mostly that something would come up too soon for her to _finish_ recovering. She was thin to begin with and her body mass had dropped perceptibly further, which wasn't surprising considering how much uncontrolled power she burned through with the gnat demons. Alec and Jace had probably been the only saving grace that had kept her from burning herself up entirely before Magnus had realized what was happening. He'd set Max to the task of feeding her all day, but it was going to take a while to replace all of herself that she'd transformed into power and light. As it was, he'd had to take in the seams of her dress that afternoon despite the fact she'd just been measured for it less than a week ago.

Magnus looked at Alec and Jace. "Before we go back out there, how are you two feeling?"

Jace frowned. "Starving. Please tell me we're having more than champagne at this reception."

"Canapes," Magnus said, "but hunger is probably a good sign, all considered. What have you two eaten since we left this morning?"

There was a long moment of silence before Alec finally said, "We were busy."

 _Nothing?_ They'd gone into a wildly unknown power situation — after exhausting themselves less than 48 hours before, no less — without having eaten since _sunrise??_

"You know it's a problem and you have _phones,"_ Magnus snapped. "With an _alarm feature_."

Thankfully the three large meals he'd personally seen them eat since the 'demon run', and the time to digest them, had apparently been enough. No one had passed out mid-ceremony, no one had burned out and died, he was taking it for a win.

"We checked for injuries," Jace said defensively.

"Oh good, you managed one of the basic requirements of living. We don't have time for a steak dinner, but here," Magnus conjured up another heaping platter of the miniature mooncakes he'd been pushing at Clary all day via Max. "Eat, all three of you. I'm starting to feel like you're all baby warlocks who don't know how to take care of yourselves. Remedial Magic Use and You instruction is going on your to-do lists. How are you feeling besides hungry?"

"Fine," Alec said between bites of pastry and lotus seed paste. "There's no problem keeping the wall up between us. I can sense you _,_ which is a little weird, but it's different from the parabatai bond."

Jace nodded. "Same, only with Clary."

Magnus took a minute to look for any sense of Alec and, yes, there was something there, but it was less specific than it had been before or during the ceremony, and no sense of Jace at all. "I don't seem to be getting anything from you."

One corner of Alec's mouth twitched up. "That's not surprising since I know how to block you out."

"Ah, something else for the to do list."

"For both of you, yeah."

There was a few moments of silence while they worked their way diligently through the platter before the four phones still sitting on top the desk chimed with received text messages. Alec brushed off his hands and leaned over to pick up his own. "Izzy has lost whatever patience she had," he reported.

"She used most of it up presenting everything to the Inquisitor and planning the reception." Jace said, brushing off his own hands and rolling his sleeves back down before buttoning the cuffs. "Plus, she's not worried it's somehow all going to go wrong now. We'll stagger our entrances. You two follow in five minutes." The expression on his face was grim, as if he faced the gallows rather than a few hours of socializing and alcohol.

As Jace took Clary's arm, Magnus said lightly, "Regardless of the attendees, Jace, this _is_ a reception, not a battlefield."

Jace paused and looked back at him. "A battlefield is a lot easier than a roomful of Council members and I wasn't asking, Magnus. Five minutes."

They left, closing the door behind them, and Magnus spun around to an amused looking Alec who'd perched one hip on the desk. "He's cranky," Magnus observed.

"He wasn't happy about this afternoon's surprise and he hasn't had a chance to get it out of his system with everything happening. He'll calm down."

Magnus frowned. "No one's happy about this afternoon's surprise, Alexander. At some point we need to have a conversation about issuing personal challenges to all the realms simultaneously."

Alec shrugged. "Ithuriel started it." Then he reached out his hands and Magnus took them automatically, suddenly finding himself yanked in close between Alec's legs. "Five minutes," Alec said against Magnus' lips, "whatever shall we do to kill the time."

It was a blatant, but effective, distraction technique and almost fifteen minutes had passed by the time Izzy's next invective filled text arrived. Magnus had nearly forgotten there was something else they were supposed to be doing.

Alec pulled back from Magnus' mouth just far enough to mumble, "We should—"

"Mm-hmm," Magnus agreed, kissing Alec one— no, two more times for good measure.

 

* * *

 

They managed to arrive at the reception without looking like they'd been making out for a quarter of an hour except, perhaps, to their close friends and Alec's family.

As Alec was immediately whisked away, Cat gave Magnus a look like she knew full well what he'd been up to. He just shrugged and said, "It was fortification."

She handed him a glass of champagne.

The reception was… well, it was a room full of Council members, the majority of whom were the hidebound old guard who were deeply uncomfortable with his presence in the Institute as an equal, let alone his role in the ceremony. So it was exactly what Magnus expected. Raphael had ducked out almost as soon as the ceremony was over, which was probably wise. Aline had been called away for an emergency shortly after Magnus and Alec had arrived, but she'd managed to hug Alec before running off. The Consul and the Inquisitor, along with their entourages, had left after the first hour with all due pomp and circumstance, but there were still plenty of people milling about, dealing in rumors, and making pointed remarks. Two hours into the trial of endurance, Magnus was relieved when Maryse washed up next to him.

"You have well and truly stolen my child, Magnus Bane," she said by way of greeting. Alec had mentioned he'd sent her a brief letter about the engagement and his plan to name Clary Head of the Institute. They hadn't had any time to talk about either of those things properly, but she and Magnus couldn't discuss them here and now, either.

"Child? Singular? Honestly, Maryse, as if I didn't steal the whole lot of them."

Izzy cooed at him as she and Simon appeared to his other side. "Aw, it's adorable how you think you had any say in it."

Magnus huffed. "I crashed a wedding, if you'll recall."

"I sent you an invitation. I literally _asked you_ to crash the wedding."

"Thank the angel you did," Jace said from the other side of Simon.

Maybe Magnus would attempt to explain to her someday that an invitation was a request and "yes" was an answer, but so was "no". Izzy had heard a lot of no's growing up, though, and she seemed to have developed a strong tolerance with convenient blinders, so it would be an interesting but probably futile conversation. He glanced around the room, looking for Alec out of habit, and suddenly realized why he was surrounded by Lightwoods and a Simon. For the sheer entertainment of the answer, he asked, "Izzy, my dear, why does it look like Alec and Clary are terrorizing a couple of council members?"

"Probably because they are, but those two assholes deserve it. They should have known better than to make those kinds of comments where we could hear them."

"Isabelle," Maryse scolded, although it lacked conviction.

Izzy rolled her eyes. "It's fine. Luke's on his way over to play good cop."

"Wow," Simon said, "Let me tell you, Luke dragging Clary out of defending someone's honor is giving me hilarious elementary era flashbacks. He's got Maia with him, though, so I don't see how that's going to help."

"Like gas on a fire, those two," Izzy agreed gleefully as she leaned back slightly to get a better view.

"You all do know I've been dealing with far worse than thinly veiled insults from Shadowhunters for longer than any of you have been alive, right?" All of their ages added together for that matter.

Maryse made a noise that might have been a giggle. At any rate, it sounded slightly hysterical. "Oh, that's far from the only irony here, Magnus."

True. The thing about immortality was how your ironic moments tended to multiply exponentially. Magnus tried not to think about it too much. He summoned to hand one of the opened champagne bottles from the kitchen and used it to refill her glass as well as his own.

The group across the room broke up into hostile and non-hostile parties. Clary was wearing a genteel smirk and Alec and Maia both looked ferocious enough that no one crossed their path; in fact, as Luke herded the three of them over to the group surrounding Magnus, at least two people did an about face to avoid it.

Once they were in conversational distance, Maryse drained her champagne and said to Alec, "Your attitude is showing again, sweetheart." She used the empty glass to do some kind of circular motion of her own face in demonstration. Magnus waggled the bottle at her and she held her glass out for him to refill.

"My attitude is going to be showing a lot more if people don't start minding their damn manners," Alec growled.

Clary snorted. "No chance of that. I'm going to go circulate and see if I can't shuffle some people out. Maybe I'll get lucky." She walked off with the particular smile that looked nice but said someone might well end up losing their dignity and it definitely wasn't going to be biscuit.

"How does she define lucky in this situation?" Maia asked.

"Random demon appearance," Simon offered at the same time Jace said, "Reason to stab something." They looked at each other and Simon shrugged. "Yeah, either one."

Luke rubbed at his forehead and sighed.

Alec nodded. "I like demons a lot better than most of this room. Demons you can just run through and be done with." He didn't even bother to lower the normal volume of his voice. Just how much champagne had Alec had in the last two hours anyway? Or were they playing by Alicante rules and no one told Magnus?

Maryse choked on a laugh.

Jace angled his glass at Magnus in a refill request. "Maia, if you feel the urge to bite one of the guests, don't hold back. Just remember you've got human teeth right now and go for the jugular."

"Please," Maia scoffed, "I can take you on just fine with my fists. Somehow I don't think I need teeth for this crowd."

Luke acknowledged someone outside their circle with a tilt of his head and went to walk away, but then he stopped and pointed at Maia. "You stay here and don't bite _or_ punch anyone." She waved him off with her glass while rolling her eyes.

"Oh, you wouldn't even need your fists for that matter," Maryse said after he'd left. "Just flash your eyes at them and half this group would be so scandalized they'd faint dead on the spot." She looked up at Alec. "I don't like most of these people either. Why did we invite them again?"

 _"Politics,"_ Alec said like it was a particularly insidious disease.

"Are listening runes just not a thing anymore?" Magnus asked. He didn't particularly care if the entire room overheard the conversation, but he would have thought Maryse would at the very least.

She smiled at him. "They are, as you say, still a thing. For example, Filip over there deserves whatever he overhears." She toasted someone on the other side of the room. Magnus was going to assume it was the Shadowhunter that flushed red and glared at her.

"Well, goodness, if I'd known we were having _that_ kind of party, I would have brought something stronger than champagne." He emptied the bottle into the two nearest glasses with any room in them — Alec's and Izzy's — then traded it out for a full one.

"Does this mean you're finally moving back to New York full time?" Alec asked his mother. "I've only been asking for years."

"I've had reasons, Alec." She emptied her glass again. Magnus already knew Izzy came by her tolerance honestly, but Maryse having it on display at an official function had been surprising him. It was less so if she was putting paid to playing the dutiful soldier for the scraps of respectability Alicante had been doling out. Maybe he should just hand over the bottle.

Jace nodded solemnly. "There's always a reason, but just think of how happy it would make Alec to have his whole floc— all his favorite people in the same city."

Alec side-eyed his parabatai.

"Regardless, as it happens, circumstances have changed. So yes, Alec, I am moving back to New York full time."

While Alec looked smug, what Magnus assumed was the key change in circumstance wandered up with his attention wholly devoted to his phone.

Izzy frowned at Max. "There is no way we could have gotten away with that at his age."

"You are correct," Maryse agreed, "but after barely surviving you three, I've concluded that I can't take a fourth late adolescence and I've given up. Also, his primary commanding officer is present and that authority supersedes mine as parent." She sounded very pleased about that fact.

Izzy rolled her eyes. "Mama, I love Max with my whole entire heart, but we were practically angels. We certainly never _set an institute on fire."_

"Do we need to rehash the time you commandeered a horse?" Maryse asked.

Izzy winced.

"Or the time Henry Toll ended up hanging upside down in the middle of Accords Hall covered in glit—?"

"No, no, it's fine," Izzy interrupted. "Point taken." Then she muttered, "He deserved it."

Without looking up, Max said, "Magnus, Cat was telling me you were banned from Peru but won't tell me why and it's not in your file."

"Damnit, Max!" Alec snatched Max's phone out of his hand and slid it into one of his own back pockets. "Stop using your phone to break into the Institute's servers."

"Hey!" Max grabbed for his phone but it was far too late.

Izzy nodded. "Yeah, use a tablet. Your phone's too easy to trace."

"Maybe _your_ phone is easy to trace."

Alec sighed. "That is absolutely not what I meant."

"Like the _country_ of Peru?" Simon asked Max.

Jace turned to Magnus and squinted at him. "The _whole_ country?"

Maryse gave a low, impressed whistle. Magnus debated whether to refill her glass or attempt to cut her off. Oh, who was he kidding. He had to chase her glass around a bit, but he managed to refill it without any ending up on the floor.

Maia nodded. "I did actually know that."

Magnus metaphorically waved the whole mess away. He did think to use the hand not holding the bottle, but the result was champagne splashing from his glass to his wrist and soaking into the edge of his shirt cuff. "It will blow over eventually. Since they haven't even bothered to tell me why — which is awfully rude — the reasons can't possibly be all that terrible."

Alec took the bottle from Magnus, which was probably wise, and used it to refill his own glass, which was probably much less wise. If even the half of this group was upright by the official end of this soiree, it was going to be a miracle. Further demonstrating questionable judgment, Alec handed the bottle back to Magnus. Then he lifted a pointed eyebrow. "I've heard five different stories from three different people about 'adventures' you've had in Peru. I am absolutely certain there are more. They haven't told you why because there are multiple, obvious reasons."

Magnus huffed. "Yes, but I can't frame obvious _but unstated_ reasons and display them on the wall now can I?"

"I have a new goal!" Max announced with bright eyed excitement just as Luke returned. "Be banned from a whole country!"

Luke looked at Maryse, who just shook her head. "No, it's fine. It's Alec's problem."

Clary filtered back by and said quietly, "How's everyone? I'm sober, personally, which is unfortunate after this past week, so if we could get rid of the rest of our out-of-town visitors that would be great."

Simon smirked. "Was that an order, Miss Head of the Institute?"

"Don't sass me, Lewis. I can still lay my hands on a copy of our seventh grade talent show."

Izzy gasped in delight.

"Oh wow," Jace said, "that's cold. You're definitely showing me later, right?"

Going by Simon's laugh, he wasn't too worried about it either way.

Clary shooed them apart with her hands. "No deals will be made until after all unfriendly parties have been shoved back through the Alicante portal. Move it, all of you."

"Wait," Alec said, interrupting the huddle break, "once we've wrapped this up, don't run off." Then he added helpfully, "We have a thing."

Oh, damn. Magnus had forgotten about that. He probably shouldn't have drank quite so much champagne. It was only a few minor bits of magic, though, and Cat was available to fix anything that went awry. It was all fine.


	20. Epiphanies and Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus has an epiphany, a few things are revealed, and Max and Maia have a rematch. There's also an incidental(/accidental) disco ball.

Clary and Maia, arm in arm, led the decidedly tipsy group through the halls of the Institute to the residential level. Magnus, Alec, and Jace were trailing after and, behind him, Magnus could hear Simon catching Luke up on his adventures elsewhere. Luke had already managed to extract a promise from Simon that he surface from the Izzy haze long enough to stop by for dinner while he was in New York.

"Bring her with you, Simon," Luke said. "I don't want you to go into withdrawal." Which made Izzy laugh delightedly.

Cat and Maryse were somewhere to the rear. Maryse had slipped out of her shoes the moment the last guest had left and now Magnus would swear the occasional snatches of humming he was hearing were coming from her. The theory was corroborated by the two underlings they passed who stared at the back of the group with wide, alarmed eyes. It was probably a good thing Cat was back there; Magnus could attest to her experience at herding people who were somewhat less than perfectly sober.

He had actually been a little surprised when Izzy had specifically asked him if he'd invite Cat to this after party. Cat was obviously important to him, and she and Alec had become good friends, but it still surprised him. "She saved Alec," Izzy had explained when he'd asked why. "Has saved Alec multiple times. She would have done it for you, regardless, but she's important to him, too. I know we're not bringing Madzie back to the Institute yet, and, let's face it, there's a good chance we'll all be drunk, so that wouldn't be great for her, but we'd like it if Cat could at least be there." She'd hesitated then, her nerves for the whole thing briefly breaking through, before adding, "If we… if we do this again, dinner with everybody I mean, then we'll plan something Madzie friendly."

Of course "dinner with everybody" had a particular meaning in this case.

"I was told there would be food," Maia was saying. "The hors d'oeuvres were good, but I don't think they count."

"Not with that much alcohol," Clary agreed. "Food is where we're going. _Special_ food."

Maia made a confused noise. "Special food?"

"Special as in— uh— You'll see."

Next to Magnus, Jace's head snapped up and he leaned forward to catch Alec's eye. "Alec!" he hissed quietly. "How are we going to explain this?"

Magnus looked over at Alec, who just looked puzzled. "Uh, I didn't think it was that diffi—" There came a trill of a laugh from the back of the group and Alec groaned. "Oh, shit, Mom." The confused expression had transformed into complete dismay.

"Yeah"

"By the fucking angel," Alec swore. "How did we not think of that??"

"Fuck, we'll have to wing it. Maybe Izzy will think of something."

Oh boy.

Magnus had already slipped out and redecorated Alec's Institute bedroom for socializing and casual dining while the last of guests were leaving, so once they all gathered up outside the room, all Alec had to do was open the door. Alec, a little loose and expansive with too much champagne, threw it open with a flourish. At Jace's choked off laugh, he turned and looked at the room. When he turned back around, his expression said he was determined to power through.

Cat slipped up next to Magnus. "What have I told you about decorating under the influence."

"I think it looks great," Alec said loyally.

Aww, Magnus knew there was a reason he was marrying him. Magnus himself had enough unfortunate experience to know he'd regret virtually every design decision tomorrow, but for tonight it looked smashing. It was all the colors he loved! The colors didn't even clash! What more did she want? A coherent style type? Pfft. How boring.

"I like the disco ball," Max said. Disco—? Oh, okay, that was mistake. Magnus had meant for that to be a chandelier.

Izzy appeared to Magnus' right, between he and Jace. "It does reflect the candles nicely, but we're gonna need more light."

He started to lift his hand but Cat caught his wrist. "NO more open flame. Not with that much loose fabric."

Spoilsport. "Fine," he grumbled and nixed the additional candelabras in favor of turning the ceiling to a field of small panes of glass and embedding tiny lights around each section. He had to shove some of the swaths of velvet draperies back closer to the wall to expose the light, but there were enough small panes and ambient city light shining through them that it added up to a significant increase in visibility.

"Yeah, see, that wouldn't have been my first thought," Clary said.

Poor biscuit, her artistic sensibilities were probably whimpering. Even in his current state, Magnus could admit that while the colors didn't clash, the patterns sure did. He added a couple of neutral chairs to the ring of couches to separate the worst offenders, but nothing was going to help stylistically integrate the long coffee table in the center. He'd seen a smaller version of it on display last week, though, and he just couldn't resist. The lucite shell was filled with hundreds of pounds of glitter! Oh, hold on, he could make it _glow._

"Stop before you get too far behind, Magnus," Luke said as he walked bravely into the room.

"Izzy said she wanted more light," Magnus protested.

"Cool!" Max chirped, "Can we keep it this way?"

Alec made a horrified noise. "Absolutely not!"

Luke had already taken a seat, as had Cat, when Maia finally registered what was on the table and laughed. "Wow, this is not what I usually think of as 'special' food."

It wasn't unkindly meant, but the Lightwood children abruptly stopped their forward motion just inside the doorway, their significant others caught hovering uncertainly between them. Jace had developed a studiously neutral expression while Alec was frowning down at the rather homey spread of waxed cardboard boxes, styrofoam containers, plastic cutlery, and cheap, break apart wooden chopsticks. That it was spread out on gleaming, glitter filled lucite only added to its guileless display.

Magnus was pretty sure the sharp spike of uncomfortable dismay he felt in his chest — faint, and rounded off at the edges, but noticeable — was either directly from Alec or from a combination of he and Jace. He looked at Clary and found her rubbing at the center of her breastbone and grimacing, so presumably she was feeling something similar. Meanwhile, Max had casually lifted his phone from Alec's pocket and was head down in it again. From his viewing angle, Magnus could see that Max was swiping repeatedly between home screens without actually opening anything.

Magnus had a good idea how much this meant to the four of them, and to Alec, Izzy, and Jace in particular. That they were opening up their sacred ritual for this whole group of people was a mark of how much their lives had expanded in the last couple of years. Rituals, however, didn't have the same meaning when the participants were unwitting. Magnus felt sure everyone in attendance would be honored to be included but, with Maryse in the room, they couldn't explain it without opening barely healed wounds and admitting to years of transgressions.

Izzy suddenly laughed. "I figured we'd all be starving by now and need something in our stomachs other than champagne and canapes, but with all the reception planning and the gnat demons, I just ran out of time." She smiled sweetly and leaned against Simon, looking tired but otherwise entirely unconcerned, as if four days ago she hadn't been frantically interrogating Magnus while trying to refine her Everyone's Preferred Take-Out spreadsheet.

Simon looked distinctly confused but closed his mouth almost as soon as he opened it.

Maryse slipped through the line of her children, swayed over to the couch Luke had chosen, and proceeded to upend Izzy's attempted subterfuge. "Actually, this is an exotic spread by certain standards, Maia," she said as she curled up on the couch with exaggerated grace and lay her head on Luke's shoulder. "They may be more worldly now, but Alec, Jace, and Izzy were forbidden virtually all restaurant food when they were growing up, and take-out was well beyond the pale." She smiled wryly as she slid her hand into Luke's. "In hindsight, the idea of keeping them free of impure mundane and Downworld influences was… somewhat misguided."

"It certainly didn't go as planned," Cat murmured, poking some magic at the small side table next to her. It stopped rubbing up against her legs and settled down to properly hold her glass.

Maia stared at Maryse. "Okay, wow, that definitely explains a few things but _take-out_ was forbidden? You live in Manhattan! How does that even work?"

Her bluff partially called, Izzy straightened back up, some of the false cheer draining away, and shrugged. "We didn't get out of the Institute much, not unless we were with a patrol group or running an op. We spent most of our time studying or training, either here or in Alicante. We did get to go to other institutes sometimes but common mundane food just wasn't—" She paused and glanced at her mother, then finished, "It wasn't something Lightwoods did."

Given her mother's pained expression, Magnus assumed that last was a direct quote, but then it was Maryse who dropped the real bombshell. "Which is not to say they didn't go to a lot of trouble to acquire it and sneak it into the Institute on occasion."

Izzy gasped and Magnus looked over in time to see Jace's eyes go comically wide. "You _knew?"_ Alec yelped.

Maryse rolled her eyes. "Of course I knew, Alec!" She paused. "Your father didn't. Anyway, we've apparently all rated an invitation to one of _the_ most exclusive events to be hosted inside these walls."

Maia shook her head. "I'm learning so much tonight. I'm also more puzzled every day how you three pass for as normal as you do."

"I think that was a compliment," Izzy muttered to Simon.

Simon nodded reassuringly and patted her hand. "It was."

"I'm guessing you didn't have champagne though," Maia said, tipping her glass toward them.

Jace's face brightened and he smiled, too wide and open for the jaded image he preferred. "No, but we had ice cream!" His voice had the earnest tone that sometimes appeared, an honest enthusiasm that slipped through all the healed over cracks and breaks that littered his psyche.

Maia smiled back at him. "Ice cream totally tops champagne."

The food was a motley assortment, but everyone found something to eat despite the fretting Izzy was trying to hide. Clary was the one who finally stood up, put her own food down, picked up a piece of pizza, put it on plate, handed it to Izzy, and then shoved her back into the couch. Izzy huffed but smiled nonetheless and started finagling her slice while Clary curled back up beside Jace and returned to her own meal.

It was after most of his own box of spicy noodles that Magnus felt a niggling sense of being watched. He looked up to find Jace staring at him thoughtfully. Magnus lifted an eyebrow and Jace said, "When we first ran into Ithuriel, right after he yanked us apart, he said at least he had that much influence over us _for now._ That would imply they're losing influence, right? But influence over what, exactly?"

"Yanked you apart?" Magnus asked.

"He forced Alec and I out of the parabatai."

Next to him, Clary cringed. Magnus had to agree with her, particularly after the wild hunt — from what he'd experienced through the bond with Alec, that had to be like being ripped in two. Then he suddenly remembered the Seelie Queen saying _these are not the auspices of angels._

"The wild hunt," he said.

"What?" Alec asked, his brow scrunching up. "Angels don't have any influence over the Wild Hunt to start with."

"The night of what you called a demon run. The gnat demons. The Seelie Queen called it a wild hunt."

"I'm really confused." Izzy dropped her feet to the floor and leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees.  "What do gnat demons have to do with the Wild Hunt?"

"Wait, the Seelie Queen was hanging around the demon run?!" Clary demanded.

Maia scowled and stabbed at her curry with a plastic fork. "I offered to bite her but nooooo."

Luke rubbed one hand over his face and sighed.

"Never mind, that's not important," Magnus said. "No, wait, it is because she was right." He leaned up to sit his food down on the edge of the table. "Not the formalized Wild Hunt, but the older kind. That night, every nephilim in New York answered solely to Clary, regardless of any oaths to angels or loyalty to Alicante. You were feral nephilim for that hunt, not Shadowhunters, and immune to angelic interference."

The rest of the room, save Maia, stared at him in astonishment. Clary opened her mouth like she was about to say something, then just closed it again.

 _"Now_ I have so many questions I don't even know where to start," Izzy said.

"Is that why you were so worried about Clary afterward?" Jace asked.

Magnus grimaced.

"We all still had our runes so how could we not be Shadowhunters?" Max asked from the over-sized armchair on the other side of Alec. He'd discarded his shoes and was all tucked up in the corner like he didn't know how to sit in chair by himself.

Magnus shook his head. "Alicante gives and takes permission for your use of runes, but that is tradition and Clave Law, not biological fact. Shadowhunter is a job title. Nephilim is what you _are."_

Max straightened up, eyes brightening as the subject caught his particular interest. "Is that like how Clary can use special runes? Ones the Council didn't sanction?"

"Yes. Runes are a tool. The power they channel is something else all together. I would go so far as to say Clary's special runes _are_ special because they require a depth of power most of you can't access. I also suspect that she could create more herself if she better understood how they work in the first place."

"Like creating a new spell," Cat said.

Magnus nodded. "Exactly like creating a new spell."

"Wait, back up," Luke interjected, waving one hand, "you said the night of the demon run they were immune to angelic interference. Why would angels be interfering in the first place?"

"They've been interfering all along, especially with biscuit. A new rune here, a prophetic visitation there, and now this. Those are just the obvious things, the things we know about."

"Most of the time they wouldn't need to bother," Maryse pointed out. "After all, the Council maintains their army and holds the power to declare war in Raziel's name."

"The Shadow World tends to forget that," Cat mused. "How we, the races of the Downworld, came about by chance and happenstance, but nephilim were created for a specific purpose."

Alec sat his container down next to Magnus' and leaned back to stare up at the ceiling. "The influence is the difference between them being able to take it all away, to strip our runes and break the bond, and to… not. They're losing control, but that means we're gaining it." There was a shivery relief buried under his words that Magnus could sense rather than hear.

"Yes," Magnus agreed. "It's also the difference between the possibility existing and the three of you actually knowing you can operate independently. An Institute of Shadowhunters going rogue for the night is one thing, but Clary has a great deal of power for a nephilim and you and Jace as parabatai are one of Heaven's more significant weapons. Losing the ability to control the three of you — by oath or brute force — would be altogether different."

"He did say he was reminding me of my oaths." Alec looked over at Jace. "So the question is, how much of the conversation with Ithuriel was a lie? Is there even an agreement?"

"Any 'agreement' is actually irrelevant for our purposes," Magnus said. "There's nothing to stop them from making good on the threat for any reason they choose."

Jace glared at Magnus. "Besides me."

"And _me_ ," Clary added. "And literally everyone else in this room." Her voice had a hard edge that sounded like she was mentally tallying the weapons in reach.

Magnus held up a placating hand. "What I'm getting at is they gain nothing from carrying out the threats. It's by issuing them in the first place that they enforce their right to make them."

Clary pointed her chopsticks at him. "The threats were just a smoke screen to make them look more in control of the situation than they really are. Fake authority well enough and we won't question it."

"Exactly. The bond needed stabilized and they _want_ it stable because Alec and Jace are most useful to them the way they are. He gave us a way to do that, but then turned it to their further advantage to try and secure the hold that's slipping on the three of you."

"Or maybe," Cat said, studying Alec, "it has already slipped."

"Great!" Izzy sat up and clapped her hands together, her bright eyed expression like a warning rattle of incoming temper. "Now that we have that established, would one of you like to tell the rest of the room when this conversation took place and _what those threats were."_

Alec shrugged. "They weren't—"

"No, shut up," Jace interrupted, "you'll make it sound reasonable and there was nothing reasonable about it."

While Alec sulked, Jace related what he deemed the critical details. Like angelic threats of torture.

"I should always drink a bottle of champagne before these ridiculous revelations," Maryse said serenely. "They're so much less terrifying this way."

"That only lasts until the sobriety kicks back in," Luke pointed out.

"Yes, but then I'm already past the initial panic."

"Okay, one, I'm fine," Alec said irritably. "Two, Ithuriel literally 'assigned' me something I'm already responsible for, and, three, we've just established it was largely an empty threat."

Izzy, who had dropped her head into her hands, groaned. "Largely an empty threat, he says. Why am _I_ sober for this? Mama, your alcohol tolerance is a curse."

"If you're calling me mama, Isabelle, then you're not that sober."

"Ugh, I'm the wrong kind of not-sober then."

"See?" a smug Jace said to Alec. "Izzy agrees with me."

Alec rolled his eyes. "Eat your dinner, Jace."

"I've eaten my dinner, Alec. So has everyone else, which means its time for dessert." He looked pointedly at Magnus.

"Why do you expect me to read your mind?" Magnus asked, just to be difficult. "I'm a warlock, not a psychic."

Jace scoffed. "You were in charge of food."

"I was not in charge of food, I was in charge of relocating it to the room and making sure it was hot. Izzy was in charge of procuring it."

"Izzy wouldn't forget ice cream."

Izzy dropped her hands and straightened up finally, but it was only to slump back into the couch. "Izzy was specifically told it would be taken care of."

Jace crossed his arms and frowned at Magnus.

"You do realize you can eat ice cream any time you want, right?" Magnus asked.

_"Magnus"_

Maia was laughing. "Oh my god, you sound like a ten year old."

"Welcome to Jace unfiltered," Alec said, looking amused, but Magnus noticed he put the last of his own food down and waited too.

Magnus rolled his eyes but conceded he'd teased enough. "Lucky for you, blondie, it is indeed taken care of." He freed up a hand and sent the empty containers back to the kitchen to make room, shuffled the remaining food into a tidy group, then summoned in the desert along with bowls and spoons. The distances involved meant a direct import would have been more than a minor bit of magic, but he'd popped out to acquire it earlier in the day and hidden it away in temperature controlled storage he'd arranged for locally. It wasn't quite the usual offering for one of their dinner nights, but this _was_ a special occasion.

Jace blinked at the table in surprise. "Magnus, that's not ice cream. That's gelato."

"I think you're missing the spirit of the thing," Max said.

Izzy sat back up, reached out to pick up the card propped up in front of the closest metal pan, read it, and grinned. "From Italy."

"But I'm not actually complaining," Max amended.

Magnus looked over at Cat. "From that one place we discovered… sometime in the 80's, I think. 1980's."

"It's a good choice," Cat agreed, "but you know they're going to notice so much of their day's supply missing."

"It was a completely above board transaction! Money transferred hands!"

Izzy was already reaching for a spoon. "Dibs on the pistachio."

"All of it?" Simon asked mildly.

Spoon in hand, Izzy looked him dead in the eye while sliding to the floor to sit directly in front of the pan in question. "Yes."

Alec looked over at Magnus and gestured at Izzy.

"I planned for it," Magnus said. "There's two of everything." He summoned in the second pan of pistachio and added it to the end of the row.

Once everyone had resettled with gelato — Izzy happily eating directly out of her confiscated pan while everyone else used bowls like civilized beings — Maia asked, "I realize I'm probably setting myself up to be surrounded by a room full of obnoxious people again, but when are you going to marry your boy toy, Magnus?"

Alec made an affronted noise. "I am _older than you."_

"Oh, no, I've started curating the guest list for that event very differently," Magnus said absently, swirling his spoon through his bowl to even out the melting.

 _"My_ age has nothing to do with— wait, hold up."

Cat coughed. "Magnus."

He looked up. "Hmmmm?" Then he realized everyone was staring at him expectantly. Well, except Alec, who had covered his eyes with one hand.

"Guest list?" Luke asked.

…Oops.

"Half the room knows anyway," he said to Alec, who rubbed at one eyebrow and tipped his head down as if it would hide his smile. Magnus glanced around and amended it to, "Most of the room. Honestly, Luke and Maia finding out was just a matter of time." He paused, then attempted to salvage some scrap of dignity from the whole thing. "We could probably have kept it a secret from Max."

"Hey!"

Alec threw his head back and laughed. Magnus smiled because he couldn't help it and took another bite of gelato.

"We should _officially_ tell everybody here then," Alec said, looking over at him and still smiling.

Magnus, caught up in Alec looking radiantly happy, was briefly confused. "Tell them wha—? Oh! Right." He turned towards their audience as he removed the glamour on Alec's ring. "So we're engaged."

 

* * *

 

The cheers and laughter that had followed Magnus' announcement hadn't surprised Alec, but he hadn't stopped smiling for the last hour either. It didn't hurt his sense of peace with the world that the very loudly patterned couch he was sitting on was actually comfortable and Magnus was half asleep against his left shoulder. Magnus hadn't really had a chance to fully recover from the demon run, and he'd been going non-stop since early in the morning on top of that, but hopefully the next few days would be calm and he could rest up. As it was, he wasn't even flinching from the yelling, thuds, and growls happening a few feet away where Maia and Max were engaged in a rematch for an incident Max couldn't half remember.

"I can totally take you now that I'm rested up," Max had said.

Maia had nodded and smirked. "Sure, buddy."

The furniture had quickly been pushed back against the walls and Cat had cleared anything left in the center of the room. So far, Max wasn't making the least bit good on his boast.

Alec mentally edged around the wall between he and Magnus to check on him, that he really was content and not just exhausted beyond all sense after the last few days. It was a tricky thing since he didn't want to overstep, but he didn't know where the lines were yet, either. If it had been Jace — well, he'd already know for sure anyway, but the lines with Jace didn't translate. Alec didn't _want_ his weird non-boundaries with Jace in his bond with Magnus. Jace was like a right arm some days, like the air Alec breathed. Sometimes he lost track of Jace and mistook him for the grip of his own hand or one of his ribs. Alec couldn't bear to lose track of Magnus. He was too precious exactly as he was.

From what Alec could tell from his cautious distance, Magnus was pretty tired, but not critically so. Still, there was something niggling at the back of Alec's mind. It wasn't coming from Magnus apparently, which only left his parabatai.

Right then, Jace flopped down on the couch beside Alec. "Are you ready for this?"

"Marrying Magnus? I'm very ready."

"Alec, the entire New York Shadow World knows you're ready to marry Magnus. I'm talking about literally everything else that's happened."

Oh, that _._ "Not sure they're the kinds of things you can be ready for."

Jace snorted in amusement.

Simon was theoretically refereeing the match in the center of the room, but he was laughing too much to be very effective, while Izzy was yelling corrections at Max and clearly despairing. Clary was egging them both on unilaterally and working on her unfortunate sobriety with a bottle of champagne Magnus had handed her before he started dozing off. His mom, Luke, and Cat, on the other hand, were ignoring the chaos in favor of their own conversation over cups of what Alec assumed was either tea or coffee.

In contrast to all the noise in the room, it was quiet in Alec's head. A little too quiet after weeks of Jace like a second skin most of their waking hours, let alone so much time battle ready as parabatai. It was a thought that Alec no sooner had than it occurred to him that if _he_ felt that way…

Alec let the wall between them thin out, swept an awareness up against Jace's mind, and Jace was suddenly there. He wasn't waiting precisely, but he was a little too tense in the shoulders, like he'd been making a very quiet effort to hold himself apart. To give Alec space. _That_ was the niggling sense of something Alec had been feeling.

It was going to take them both time to work out the details of the new mental landscape. He and Jace's sense of each other was finer grained than it used to be, like a clearer focus, even with the walls up. The experience of the walls being down was different, too. Even with no walls at all, they seemed able to just coexist when they wanted, to be aware of each others experience without losing track of themselves. Like instead of needing brute force to control the bond, they could just _choose_. Both the ephemeral flow of information between he and Jace and living gold of the parabatai that ran through the core of it felt… Secure. Safe.

"Yeah, I think the— uh—" Jace stopped, unsure what to call the physical manifestation of the bond. "We need a shorter name for it. Anyway, I think it likes its new hiding spot."

Alec agreed. With it's physical form safely tucked away from air and light and prying eyes, the part of the bond they were more used to lay calm and quiet between them. "We'll have to tell Izzy about that soon."

"Simon's home," Jace pointed out. "After tonight, we won't see her for the rest of the weekend."

"True"

"The nightmares will probably get better now, though. You can catch up on your sleep before the interrogation."

 _You_ and _your_ weren't words Alec particularly liked in that context. Mostly because he had damn well sensed the old roots of some of those nightmares. They had been worn around the edges with how often they'd been replayed, but had still contained terrors sharp enough to draw blood.

Jace was carefully ignoring the direction of Alec's thoughts, so Alec said out loud, "If you keep having them and I'm not there, tell me."

Jace shrugged. "Everyone has nightmares sometimes."

"I mean it, Jace."

"Yeah, fine, whatever," he finally conceded, feigned annoyance a thin shield for the complicated mess of fear/relief/fondness that he wouldn't be left alone when the darkness rose. "You are such a mother hen."

Alec gave him the look he usually used on Max.

Jace just rolled his eyes.

In the center of the room, Maia had decided to stop playing after Max almost made it through her guard a couple of times. Max had managed to activate his speed rune, though, and Maia seemed to be having difficulty pinning him down with her alcohol fuzzed reflexes. She could have cleared that up by stepping out and shifting before they'd even started, but she seemed to be taking staying in human form as a personal challenge.

"So what's the plan?" Jace asked. "If we're not answering to the angels. If we're not… I don't know. Whatever we have been." The metaphorical sky of Jace's mind rolled with storm clouds.

Magnus stirred briefly and his hand slid over, his rings smooth and spiky by turns as his long fingers slid between Alec's. He shifted his cheek a bare inch on Alec's shoulder, then settled again, drifting back off if he'd even been awake.

Alec considered Jace's question. It was a funny thing to say they weren't what they had been, as if they were different somehow. He felt more like himself than ever.

"I think we're the same," he finally said. "We just didn't quite know what that was before. Not like we do now." It seemed like he kept stumbling over these epiphanies, like he was unburying more of himself over time.

A corner of Jace's mouth twitched up into a smile at the thought. He didn't disagree.

"As things stand," Alec continued, feeling his way through the murky unknown with his words, "we're still Shadowhunters and Alicante is still our best resource. We're not going to change anything for the better if we fuck off somewhere." He shrugged. "I mean, forever's a long time, so it might be different in five, or ten, or twenty years, but it's not going to be next week. We still have an institute to run, Max to finish training, and New York's Downworld to keep safe from demons. We just have more leverage because we know the bond belongs to us, not to the Council or to—" He hesitated. It was one thing to know it, it was another to say it. But ignoring difficult truths never worked out well. "The bond belongs to us, not to Raziel, not to any angel." It was a fact at this point. He knew that down to his bones. He'd held it in his bare hands.

Jace's feelings about that were as tangled up as Alec's — the uneasiness of breaking new ground and an overwhelming sense of relief with an edge of guilt. Alec could feel the comfort he was drawing from Alec's presence, though, and, with so few barriers between he and Jace, the comfort he was drawing from Clary, too. Alec's sense of her was like a distant bonfire that was out of his line of sight but close enough there was subtle shifting of the light in Jace's mind.

Slowly, Jace said, "There have been times I followed bad orders blindly because I'm a soldier, and times I couldn't refuse because I wasn't in control. Now… Now it's time for us to decide for ourselves where we stand." The last sentence had the flavor of a quote, although Alec didn't know where it was from. To the wordless query, Jace added, "The night we negotiated the Denver contract, that's what Eliff said. What was his given name?"

"Ívarr. "

"Ívarr." Jace nodded. "He said you have to decide where you stand, even if it changes. I'm not really sure what that means for us, but I know that the people I trust with power over you are all in eyesight."

"Me?"

"Being my own weakness is one thing, Alec. Being yours is…" He shrugged. "It puts a different spin on things."

Alec smiled at that. Of all the fucking ridiculous statements. "You've always been one of my biggest weaknesses, Jace, for as long as I've known you. It's nothing new. You're also one of my greatest strengths."

"It's not that simple, Alec."

"Yes it is."

Frustration and fondness all knotted up together in Jace and he huffed out a laugh. "You're impossible."

"Yeah, well, I'm going to keep right on being that kind of impossible for a long damn time so you might as well get used to it."

"We wouldn't have it any other way," Magnus said sleepily from Alec's shoulder.

Without looking, Jace reached around Alec and Magnus returned his fist bump.

Alec just smiled. Out in the center of the room, Maia howled in triumph at finally having pinned Max. Max, laughing, submitted gracefully, even as Izzy collapsed back into a chair looking both amused and exasperated while Simon was practically crying he was laughing so hard. Clary, grinning, handed Izzy the bottle of champagne and started wiggling into the chair with her. His mother, Luke, and Cat all looked amused themselves, although Alec had the feeling his mother was going to be strongly recommending a lot more training room time for Max in the near future.

His _flock,_ as Ithuriel had called it, was pretty big these days, but quite a few of the people most important to him were in the room and they were all safe and happy. Alec settled deeper into the couch. He was pretty content with that and he was going to do everything in his power to keep things that way for as long as possible.

"We should keep the disco ball," Jace said, staring thoughtfully up at the ceiling.

"We are not keeping the disco ball."

**Author's Note:**

> Whooo! I hope that was a fun read for you, because it sure was for me. This is the end of what I originally conceived of as _Angelus ex Machina_. I also have files and tidbits labeled Not a Sequel (lol). Fact is, I spent so much time building this logic within the world, and there are other things to explore (angels and demons, oh my!), so that file — which is totes about a sequel — will probably become something once I figure out an actual plot. I write these things primarily because I want to read them and, well, I'd like to read that story. I'm a slow writer, though, and scheduling means I won't be able to do any serious work on it until next May, so it'll be a while until it's posted.


End file.
